THE 

AGONY 
COLUMN 


EARL-  DERR/  DIGGERS 


CULIBRAKf 

LEONARD  WILLIAM 
*  BUCK' 

V 


Column 


THE  AGONY 
COLUMN 


EARL  DERR  BIGGERS 

oAuthor  of  Seven  Keys  to  Baldpate, 
Love  Insurance,  etc. 


Illustrated  by 

WILL  GREFE 


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XSf 


The  Agony;  Column 


Column 


CHAPTER  I 

TWO  years  ago,  in  July,  London 
was  almost  unbearably  hot.     It 
seems,  looking  back,  as  though 
the  big  baking  city  in  those  days  was 
meant  to  serve  as  an  anteroom  of  torture 
—an  inadequate  bit  of  preparation  for  the 
hell  that  was  soon  to  break  in  the  guise  of 
the  Great  War.  About  the  soda-water  bar 
in  the  drug  store  near  the  Hotel  Cecil 
many  American  tourists  found  solace  in 
the  sirups  and  creams  of  home.  Through 
the  open  windows  of  the  Piccadilly  tea 
shops  you  might  catch  glimpses  of  the 
English  consuming  quarts  of  hot  tea  in 
i 


The  Agonv  Column 

order  to  become  cool.     It  is  a  paradox 
they  swear  by. 

About  nine  o'clock  on  the  morning  of 
Friday,  July  twenty-fourth,  in  that  mem- 
orable year  nineteen  hundred  and  four- 
teen, Geoffrey  West  left  his  apartments 
in  Adelphi  Terrace  and  set  out  for  break- 
fast at  the  Carlton.  He  had  found  the 
breakfast  room  of  that  dignified  hotel  the 
coolest  in  London,  and  through  some 
miracle,  for  the  season  had  passed,  straw- 
berries might  still  be  had  there.  As  he 
took  his  way  through  the  crowded  Strand, 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  honest  British 
faces  wet  with  honest  British  perspira- 
tion he  thought  longingly  of  his  rooms  in 
Washington  Square,  New  York.  For 
West,  despite  the  English  sound  of  that 
Geoffrey,  was  as  American  as  Kansas,  his 
native  state,  and  only  pressing  business 
2 


The  Agoav  Column 


was  at  that  moment  holding  him  in  Eng- 
land, far  from  the  country  that  glowed! 
Unusually  rosy  because  of  its  remoteness. 
At  the  Carlton  news  stand  West 
bought  two  morning  papers — the  Times 
for  study  and  the  Mail  for  entertainment 
* — and  then  passed  on  into  the  restaurant. 
His  waiter — a  tall  soldierly  Prussian, 
more  blond  than  West  himself — saw  him 
coming  and,  with  a  nod  and  a  mechanical 
German  smile,  set  out  for  the  plate  of 
Strawberries  which  he  knew  would  be 
the  first  thing  desired  by  the  American. 
West  seated  himself  at  his  usual  table 
and,  spreading  out  the  Daily  Mail, 
sought  his  favorite  column.  The  first 
item  in  that  column  brought  a  delighted 
smile  to  his  face: 

"The  one  who  calls  me  Dearest  is  not 
genuine  or  they  would  write  to  me." 

3 


Column 


Any  one  at  all  familiar  with  English 
journalism  will  recognize  at  once  what 
department  it  was  that  appealed  most  to 
West.  During  his  three  weeks  in  Lon- 
don he  had  been  following,  with  the  keen- 
est joy,  the  daily  grist  of  Personal  No- 
tices in  the  Mall.  This  string  of  intimate 
messages,  popularly  known  as  the  Agony 
Column,  has  long  been  an  honored  insti- 
tution in  the  English  press.  In  the  days 
of  Sherlock  Holmes  it  was  in  the  Times 
that  it  flourished,  and  many  a  criminal 
was  tracked  to  earth  after  he  had  inserted 
some  alluring  mysterious  message  in  it. 
Later  the  Telegraph  gave  it  room;  but, 
with  the  advent  of  halfpenny  journalism, 
the  simple  souls  moved  en  masse  to  the 
Mall 

Tragedy  an'd  comedy  mingle  in  the  Ag- 
ony Column.  Erring  ones  are  urged  to 

4 


The  Agony;  Column 


return  for  forgiveness;  unwelcome  suit- 
ors are  warned  that  "Father  has  warrant 
prepared;  fly,  Dearest  One!"  Loves  that 
>vould  shame  by  their  ardor  Abelard  and 
Heloi'se  are  frankly  published — at  ten 
cents  a  word — for  all  the  town  to  smile  at. 
The  gentleman  in  the  brown  derby  states 
with  fervor  that  the  blonde  governess 
who  got  off  the  tram  at  Shepherd's  Bush 
has  quite  won  his  heart.  Will  she  permit 
his  addresses?  Answer;  this  department. 
For  three  weeks  West  had  found  this 
sort  of  thing  delicious  reading.  Best  of 
all,  he  could  detect  in  these  messages 
nothing  that  was  not  open  and  innocent. 
At  their  worst  they  were  merely  an  effort 
to  side-step  old  Lady  Convention;  this  in- 
clination was  so  rare  in  the  British,  he 
'felt  it  should  be  encouraged.  Besides,  he 
was  inordinately  fond  of  mystery  and  ro- 

5 


The  Agony;  Column 


mance,  and  these  engaging  twins  hovered 
always  about  that  column. 

So,  while  waiting  for  his  strawberries, 
he  smiled  over  the  ungrammatical  out- 
burst of  the  young  lady  who  had  come  to 
doubt  the  genuineness  of  him  who  called 
her  Dearest.  He  passed  on  to  the  second 
Item  of  the  morning.  Spoke  one  whose 
heart  had  been  completely  conquered : 

MY  LADY  sleeps.  She  of  raven  tresses. 
Corner  seat  from  Victoria,  Wednesday 
night.  Carried  program.  Gentleman  an- 
swering inquiry  desires  acquaintance. 
Reply  here. — LE  Roi. 

West  made  a  mental  note  to  watch  for 
the  reply  of  raven  tresses.  The  next  mes- 
sage proved  to  be  one  of  Aye's  lyrics — • 
now  almost  a  daily  feature  of  the  column : 

DEAREST :  Tender  loving  wishes  to  my 
dear  one.  Only  to  be  with  you  now  and 

6 


The  Agony  Column 


always.  None  "f  airer  in  my  eyes."  Your 
name  is  music  to  me.  I  love  you  more 
than  life  itself,  my  own  beautiful  darling, 
my  proud  sweetheart,  my  joy,  my  all! 
Jealous  of  everybody.  Kiss  your  dear 
hands  for  me.  Love  you  only.  Thine 
ever. — AYE. 

Which,  reflected  West,  was  generous  of 
Aye — at  ten  cents  a  word — and  in  strik- 
ing contrast  to  the  penurious  lover  who 
wrote,  farther  along  in  the  column : 

loveu  dearly;  wantocu;  longing; 

missu 

But  those  extremely  personal  notices 
tan  not  alone  to  love.  Mystery,  too,  was 
present,  especially  in  the  aquatic  utter- 
ance: 

DEFIANT  MERMAID:  Not  mine.    Alli- 
gators bitingu  now.    'Tis  well ;  delighted. 
-FIRST  FISH. 

7 


The  Agoay  Column 


And  the  rather  sanguinary  suggestion : 

DE  Box:  First  round;  tooth  gone. 
Finale.  You  will  FORGET  ME  NOT. 

At  this  point  West's  strawberries  ar- 
rived and  even  the  Agony  Column  could 
not  hold  his  interest.  When  the  last  red 
berry  was  eaten  he  turned  back  to  read : 

WATERLOO  :  Wed.  1 1 153  train.  Lady 
who  left  in  taxi  and  waved,  care  to  know 
gent,  gray  coat? — SINCERE. 

Also  the  more  dignified  request  put 
forward  in : 

GREAT  CENTRAL:  Gentleman  who  saw 
lady  in  bonnet  9  Monday  morning  in 
Great  Central  Hotel  lift  would  greatly 
value  opportunity  of  obtaining  introduc- 
tion. 

This  exhausted  the  joys  of  the  Agony 

8 


The  AgoRY  Column 


Column  for  the  day,  and  West,  like  the 
solid  citizen  he  really  was,  took  up  the 
Times  to  discover  what  might  be  the 
morning's  news.  A  great  deal  of  space 
was  given  to  the  appointment  of  a  new; 
principal  for  Dulwich  College.  The  af- 
fairs of  the  heart,  in  which  that  charming 
creature,  Gabrielle  Ray,  was  at  the  mo- 
ment involved,  likewise  claimed  atten- 
tion. And  in  a  quite  unimportant  corner, 
in  a  most  unimportant  manner,  it  was  re- 
lated that  Austria  had  sent  an  ultimatum 
to  Serbia.  West  had  read  part  way 
through  this  stupid  little  piece  of  news, 
when  suddenly  the  Thunderer  and  all  its 
works  became  an  uninteresting  blur. 

A  girl  stood  just  inside  the  door  of  the 
Carlton  breakfast  room. 

Yes ;  he  should  have  pondered  that  des- 
patch from  Vienna.  But  such  a  girl!  It 

9 


The  Agony  Column 


'adds  nothing  at  all  to  say  that  her  hair 
was  a  dull  sort  of  gold;  her  eyes  violet. 
Many  girls  have  been  similarly  blessed. 
It  was  her  manner;  the  sweet  way  she 
looked  with  those  violet  eyes  through  a 
battalion  of  head  waiters  and  resplendent 
managers ;  her  air  of  being  at  home  here 
in  the  Carlton  or  anywhere  else  that  fate 
might  drop  her  down.  Unquestionably 
she  came  from  oversea — from  the  States. 

She  stepped  forward  into  the  restau- 
rant. And  now  slipped  also  into  view, 
as  part  of  the  background  for  her,  a  mid- 
dle-aged man,  who  wore  the  conventional 
black  of  the  statesman.  He,  too,  bore  the 
American  label  unmistakably.  Nearer 
and  nearer  to  West  she  drew,  and  he  saw: 
that  in  her  hand  she  carried  a  copy  of  the 
'Dally  Mail. 

West's  waiter  was  a  master  of  the  art 
lio 


The  Agony;  Column 


of  suggesting  that  no  table  in  the  room 
was  worth  sitting  at  save  that  at  which 
he  held  ready  a  chair.  Thus  he  lured  the 
girl  and  her  companion  to  repose  not  five 
feet  from  where  West  sat.  This  accom- 
plished, he  whipped  out  his  order  book, 
and  stood  with  pencil  poised,  like  a  re- 
porter in  an  American  play. 

"The  strawberries  are  delicious,"  he 
said  in  honeyed  tones. 

The  man  looked  at  the  girl,  a  question 
in  his  eyes. 

"Not  for  me,  dad,"  she  said.  "I  hate 
them!  Grapefruit,  please." 

As  the  waiter  hurried  past,  West  hailed 
him.  'He  spoke  in  loud  defiant  tones. 

"Another  plate  of  the  strawberries!"  he 
commanded.  "They  are  better  than  ever 
to-day." 

For  a  second,  as  though  he  were  part 
ii 


The  Agony;  Column 


of  the  scenery,  those  violet  eyes  met  his 
with  a  casual  impersonal  glance.  Then 
their  owner  slowly  spread  out  her  own 
copy  of  the  Mail. 

"What's  the  news?"  asked  the  states- 
man, drinking  deep  from  his  glass  of 
water. 

"Don't  ask  me,"  the  girl  answered, 
without  looking  up.  "I've  found  some- 
thing more  entertaining  than  news.  Do 
you  know — the  English  papers  run  hu- 
morous columns !  Only  they  aren't  called 
that.  They're  called  Personal  Notices. 
And  such  notices!"  She  leaned  across 
the  table.  "Listen  to  this:  'Dearest: 
Tender  loving  wishes  to  my  dear  one. 
Only  to  be  with  you  now  and  always. 
None  "fairer  in  my  eyes" — ' 

The  man  looked  uncomfortably  about 
12 


Column 


him.  "Hush!"  he  pleaded.  "It  doesn't 
sound  very  nice  to  me." 

"Nice!"  cried  the  girl.  "Oh,  but  it  is 
• — quite  nice.  And  so  deliciously  open 
and  aboveboard.  'Your  name  is  music  to 
me.  I  love  you  more — ' ' 

"What  do  we  see  to-day?"  put  in  her 
father  hastily. 

"We're  going  down  to  the  City  an'd 
have  a  look  at  the  Temple.  Thackeray 
lived  there  once< — and  Oliver  Gold- 
smith—" 

"All  right— the  Temple  it  is." 

"Then  the  Tower  of  London.  It's  full 
of  the  most  romantic  associations.  Espe- 
cially the  Bloody  Tower,  where  those 
poor  little  princes  were  murdered. 
Aren't  you  thrilled?" 

"I  am  if  you  say  so." 

13 


The  Agoav  Column 


"You're  a  dear!  I  promise  not  to  tell 
the  people  back  in  Texas  that  you  showed 
any  interest  in  kings  and  such — if  you  will 
show  just  a  little.  Otherwise  I'll  spread 
the  awful  news  that  you  took  off  your  hat 
when  King  George  went  by." 

The  statesman  smiled.  West  felt  that 
he,  who  had  no  business  to,  was  smiling 
with  him. 

The  waiter  returned,  bringing  grape- 
fruit, and  the  strawberries  West  had  or- 
dered. Without  another  look  toward 
West,  the  girl  put  down  her  paper  and 
began  her  breakfasting.  As  often  as  he 
dared,  however,  West  looked  at  her. 
With  patriotic  pride  he  told  himself: 
"Six  months  in  Europe,  and  the  most 
beautiful  thing  I've  seen  comes  from  back 
home!" 

When  he  rose  reluctantly  twenty  min- 


The  Agony  Columa 


utes  later  his  two  compatriots  were  still 
at  table,  discussing  their  plans  for  the  day. 
As  is  usual  in  such  cases,  the  girl  ar- 
ranged, the  man  agreed. 

With  one  last  glance  in  her  direction, 
West  went  out  on  the  parched  pavement 
of  Haymarket. 

Slowly  he  walked  back  to  his  rooms. 
Work  was  waiting  there  for  him;  but, 
instead  of  getting  down  to  it,  he  sat  on 
the  balcony  of  his  study,  gazing  out  on 
the  courtyard  that  had  been  his  chief  rea- 
son for  selecting  those  apartments.  Here, 
in  the  heart  of  the  city,  was  a  bit  of  the 
countryside  transported — the  green,  trim, 
[neatly  tailored  countryside  that  is  the 
most  satisfying  thing  in  England.  There 
were  walls  on  which  the  ivy  climbed 
high,  narrow  paths  that  ran  between 
blooming  beds  of  flowers,  and  opposite 

15 


The  Agoav  Column 


his  windows  a  seldom-opened,  most  ro- 
mantic gate.  As  he  sat  looking  down  he 
seemed  to  see  there  below  him  the  girl  of 
the  Carlton.  Now  she  sat  on  the  rustic 
bench;  now  she  bent  above  the  envious 
flowers;  now  she  stood  at  the  gate  that 
opened  out  to  a  hot  sudden  bit  of  the  city. 

And  as  he  watched  her  there  in  the  gar- 
den she  would  never  enter,  as  he  reflected 
unhappily  that  probably  he  would  see  her 
no  more — the  idea  came  to  him. 

At  first  he  put  it  from  him  as  absurd, 
impossible.  She  was,  to  apply  a  fine  word 
much  abused,  a  lady;  he  supposedly  a: 
gentleman.  Their  sort  did  not  do  such 
things.  If  he  yielded  to  this  temptation 
she  would  be  shocked,  angry,  and  from 
him  would  slip  that  one  chance  in  a  thou- 
sand he  had — the  chance  of  meeting  her 
somewhere,  some  day. 
16 


The  Agon£  Column 


And  yet — and  yet —  She,  too,  had  found1 
the  Agony  Column  entertaining  and — 
quite  nice.  There  was  a  twinkle  in  her 
eyes  that  bespoke  a  fondness  for  romance. 
She  was  human,  fun-loving — and,  above 
all,  the  joy  of  youth  was  in  her  heart. 

Nonsense!  West  went  inside  and 
walked  the  floor.  The  idea  was  prepos- 
terous. Still — he  smiled — it  was  filled! 
with  amusing  possibilities.  Too  bad  he 
must  put  it  forever  away  and  settle  down 
to  this  stupid  work! 

Fo  r  eve  r  a  way  ?    Wei  1 — 

On  the  next  morning,  which  was  Sat- 
urday, West  did  not  breakfast  at  the  Carl- 
ton.  The  girl,  howrever,  did.  As  she  and! 
her  father  sat  down  the  old  man  said: 

"I  see  you've  got  your  Daily  Mall!' 

"Of  course!"  she  answered.  "I  couldn't: 
do  without  it.  Grapefruit — yes." 

17 


Column 


She  began  to  read.  Presently  her 
cheeks  flushed  and  she  put  the  paper 
down. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  the  Texas  states- 
man. 

"To-day,"  she  answered  sternly,  "you 
do  the  British  Museum.  YouVe  put  it 
off  long  enough." 

The  old  man  sighed.  Fortunately  he 
did  not  ask  to  see  the  Mail.  If  he  had, 
a  quarter  way  down  the  column  of  per- 
sonal notices  he  would  have  been  enraged 
* — or  perhaps  only  puzzled — to  read: 

CARLTON  RESTAURANT:  Nine  A.  M., 
Friday  morning.  Will  the  young  woman 
who  preferred  grapefruit  to  strawberries 
permit  the  young  man  who  had  two  plates 
of  the  latter  to  say  he  will  not  rest  until 
he  discovers  some  mutual  friend,  that  they 
may  meet  and  laugh  over  this  column  to- 
gether? 

18 


The  Agony  Column 


Lucky  for  the  young  man  who  liked 
strawberries  that  his  nerve  had  failed  hint 
and  he  was  not  present  at  the  Carlton  that 
morning!  He  would  have  been  quite 
overcome  to  see  the  stern  uncompromis- 
ing look  on  the  beautiful  face  of  a  lady 
at  her  grapefruit.  So  overcome,  in  fact, 
that  he  would  probably  have  left  the 
room  at  once,  and  thus  not  seen  the  mis- 
chievous smile  that  came  in  time  to  the 
lady's  face — not  seen  that  she  soon  picked 
up  the  paper  again  and  read,  with  that 
smile,  to  the  end  of  the  column. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  next  day  was  Sunday;  hence 
it  brought  no  Mail.     Slowly  it 
dragged  along.  At  a  ridiculously 
early  hour  Monday  morning  Geoffrey 
West  was  on  the  street,  seeking  his  favor- 
ite newspaper.     He  found  it,  found  the 
Agony  Column — and  nothing  else.  Tues- 
day morning  again  he  rose  early,   still 
hopeful.  Then  and  there  hope  died.  The 
lady  at  the  Carlton  deigned  no  reply. 

Well,  he  had  lost,  he  told  himself.  He 
had  staked  all  on  this  one  bold  throw; 
no  use.  Probably  if  she  thought  of  him 
at  all  it  was  to  label  him  a  cheap  joker, 
a  mountebank  of  the  halfpenny  press. 
Richly  he  deserved  her  scorn. 

On  Wednesday  he  slept  late.    He  was 
2Q 


Column 


in  no  haste  to  look  into  the  Daily  Mall; 
his  disappointments  of  the  previous  days 
had  been  too  keen.  At  last,  while  he  was 
shaving,  he  summoned  Walters,  the  care- 
taker of  the  building,  and  sent  him  out  to 
procure  a  certain  morning  paper. 

Walters  came  back  bearing  rich  treas- 
ure, for  in  the  Agony  Column  of  that  day 
West,  his  face  white  with  lather,  read 
joyously : 

STRAWBERRY  MAN:  Only  the  grape- 
fruit lady's  kind  heart  and  her  great  fond- 
ness for  mystery  and  romance  move  her 
to  answer.  The  strawberry-mad  one  may 
write  one  letter  a  day  for  seven  days — to 
prove  that  he  is  an  interesting  person, 
worth  knowing.  Then — we  shall  see. 
Address:  M.  A.  L.,  care  Sadie  Haight, 
Carlton  Hotel. 

All  day  West  walked  on  air,  but  with 
21 


The  Agony;  Column 


the  evening  came  the  problem  of  those 
letters,  on  which  depended,  he  felt,  his 
entire  future  happiness.  Returning  from 
dinner,  he  sat  down  at  his  desk  near  the 
windows  that  looked  out  on  his  wonderful 
courtyard.  The  weather  was  still  torrid, 
but  with  the  night  had  come  a  breeze  to 
fan  the  hot  cheek  of  London.  It  gently 
stirred  his  curtains ;  rustled  the  papers  on 
his  desk. 

He  considered.  Should  he  at  once 
make  known  the  eminently  respectable 
person  he  was,  the  hopelessly  respectable 
people  he  knew?  Hardly!  For  then,  on 
the  instant,  like  a  bubble  bursting,  would 
go  for  good  all  mystery  and  romance,  and 
the  lady  of  the  grapefruit  would  lose  all 
interest  and  listen  to  him  no  more.  He 
spoke  solemnly  to  his  rustling  curtains. 

"No,"  he  said.  "We  must  have  mys- 
22 


The  Agoav;  Columa 


tery  and  romance.     But  where — where 
shall  we  find  them?" 

On  the  floor  above  he  heard  the  solid 
tramp  of  military  boots  belonging  to  his 
neighbor,  Captain  Stephen  Fraser-Freer, 
of  the  Twelfth  Cavalry,  Indian  Army, 
home  on  furlough  from  that  colony  be- 
yond the  seas.  It  was  from  that  room 
overhead  that  romance  and  mystery  were 
to  come  in  mighty  store;  but  Geoffrey 
West  little  suspected  it  at  the  moment. 
Hardly  knowing  what  to  say,  but  gaining 
inspiration  as  he  went  along,  he  wrote  the 
first  of  seven  letters  to  the  lady  at  the 
Carlton.  And  the  epistle  he  dropped  in 
the  post  box  at  midnight  follows  here : 

DEAR  LADY  OF  THE  GRAPEFRUIT:  You 
are  very  kind.  Also,  you  are  wise.  Wise, 
because  into  my  clumsy  little  Personal 
you  read  nothing  that  was  not  there.  You 

23 


The  Agony;  Column 


knew  it  immediately  for  what  it  was — > 
the  timid  tentative  clutch  of  a  shy  man 
at  the  skirts  of  Romance  in  passing.  Be- 
lieve me,  old  Conservatism  was  with  me 
when  I  wrote  that  message.  He  was 
fighting  hard.  He  followed  me,  strug- 
gling, shrieking,  protesting,  to  the  post 
box  itself.  But  I  whipped  him.  Glory 
be!  I  did  for  him. 

We  are  young  but  once,  I  told  him. 
After  that,  what  use  to  signal  to  Ro- 
mance? The  lady  at  least,  I  said,  will 
understand.  He  sneered  at  that.  He 
shook  his  silly  gray  head.  I  will  admit 
he  had  me  worried.  But  now  you  have 
justified  my  faith  in  you.  Thank  you  a 
million  times  for  that! 

Three  weeks  I  have  been  in  this  huge, 
ungainly,  indifferent  city,  longing  for  the 
States.  Three  weeks  the  Agony  Column 


The  Agony;  Column 


has  been  my  sole  diversion.  And  then — • 
through  the  doorway  of  the  Carlton  res- 
taurant— you  came — 

It  is  of  myself  that  I  must  write,  I 
know.  I  will  not,  then,  tell  you  what  is 
in  my  mind — the  picture  of  you  I  carry. 
It  would  mean  little  to  you.  Many  Tex- 
an gallants,  no  doubt,  have  told  you  the 
same  while  the  moon  was  bright  above 
you  and  the  breeze  was  softly  whispering 
through  the  branches  of — the  branches  of 
the — of  the — 

Confound  it,  I  don't  know!  I  have 
never  been  in  Texas.  It  is  a  vice  in  me 
I  hope  soon  to  correct.  All  day  I  in- 
tended to  look  up  Texas  in  the  encyclo- 
pedia. But  all  'day  I  have  dwelt  in  the 
clouds.  And  there  are  no  reference  books 
in  the  clouds. 

Now  I  am  down  to  earth  in  my  quiet 


Column 


study.  Pens,  ink  and  paper  are  before 
me.  I  must  prove  myself  a  person  worth 
knowing. 

From  his  rooms,  they  say,  you  can  tell 
much  about  a  man.  But,  alas !  these  peace- 
ful rooms  in  Adelphi  Terrace — I  shall 
not  tell  the  number — were  sublet  fur- 
nished So  if  you  could  see  me  now  you 
would  be  judging  me  by  the  possessions 
left  behind  by  one  Anthony  Bartholo- 
mew. There  is  much  dust  on  them. 
Judge  neither  Anthony  nor  me  by  that. 
Judge  rather  Walters,  the  caretaker,  who 
lives  in  the  basement  with  his  gray-haired 
wife.  Walters  was  a  gardener  once,  and 
his  whole  life  is  wrapped  up  in  the  court- 
yard on  which  my  balcony  looks  down. 
There  he  spends  his  time,  while  up  above 
the  dust  gathers  in  the  corners — 

Does  this  picture  distress  you,  my  lady? 
26 


The  Agorvy  Column 


You  should  see  the  courtyard!  You 
would  not  blame  Walters  then.  It  is  a 
sample  of  Paradise  left  at  our  door — that 
courtyard.  As  English  as  a  hedge,  as 
neat,  as  beautiful.  London  is  a  roar  some- 
where beyond ;  between  our  court  and  the 
great  city  is  a  magic  gate,  forever  closed. 
It  was  the  court  that  led  me  to  take  these 
rooms. 

And,  since  you  are  one  who  loves  mys- 
tery, I  am  going  to  relate  to  you  the  odd 
chain  of  circumstances  that  brought  me 
here. 

For  the  first  link  in  that  chain  we  must 
go  back  to  Interlaken.  Have  you  been 
there  yet?  A  quiet  little  town,  lying 
beautiful  between  two  shimmering  lakes, 
with  the  great  Jungf rau  itself  for  scenery. 
From  the  dining-room  of  one  lucky  hotel 
you  may  look  up  at  dinner  and  watch  the 

27 


The  Agony  Column 


old-rose  afterglow  light  the  snow-capped 
mountain.  You  would  not  say  then  of 
strawberries:  "I  hate  them."  Or  of  any- 
thing else  in  all  the  world. 

A  month  ago  I  was  in  Interlaken.  One 
evening  after  dinner  I  strolled  along  the 
main  street,  where  all  the  hotels  and  shops 
are  drawn  up  at  attention  before  the  love- 
ly mountain.  In  front  of  one  of  the  shops 
I  saw  a  collection  of  walking  sticks  and, 
since  I  needed  one  for  climbing,  I  paused 
to  look  them  over.  I  had  been  at  this 
only  a  moment  when  a  young  Englishman 
stepped  up  and  also  began  examining  the 
sticks. 

I  had  made  a  selection  from  the  lot  and 
was  turning  away  to  find  the  shopkeeper, 
when  the  Englishman  spoke.  He  was 
lean,  distinguished-looking,  though  quite 
young,  and  had  that  well-tubbed  appear- 
28 


The  Agony  Column 


ance  which  I  am  convinced  is  the  great 
factor  that  has  enabled  the  English  to 
assert  their  authority  over  colonies  like? 
Egypt  and  India,  where  men  are  not  so 
thoroughly  bathed. 

"Er — if  you'll  pardon  me,  old  chap," 
he  said.  "Not  that  stick — if  you  don't 
mind  my  saying  so.  It's  not  tough  enough 
for  mountain  work.  I  would  suggest — " 

To  say  that  I  was  astonished  is  putting 
it  mildly.  If  you  know  the  English  at 
all,  you  know  it  is  not  their  habit  to  ad- 
dress strangers,  even  under  the  most  press- 
ing circumstances.  Yet  here  was  one  of 
that  haughty  race  actually  interfering  in 
my  selection  of  a  stick.  I  ended  by  buy- 
ing the  one  he  preferred,  and  he  strolled 
along  with  me  in  the  direction  of  my  ho- 
tel, chatting  meantime  in  a  fashion  fan 
from  British. 

29 


The  Agony  Column 


We  stopped  at  the  Kursaal,  where  we 
listened  to  the  music,  had  a  drink  and 
threw  away  a  few  francs  on  the  little 
horses.  He  came  with  me  to  the  veranda 
of  my  hotel.  I  was  surprised,  when  he 
took  his  leave,  to  find  that  he  regarded 
me  in  the  light  of  an  old  friend.  He  said 
he  would  call  on  me  the  next  morning. 

I  made  up  my  mind  that  Archibald  En- 
wright — for  that,  he  told  me,  was  his 
name — was  an  adventurer  down  on  his 
luck,  who  chose  to  forget  his  British  ex- 
clusiveness  under  the  stern  necessity  of 
getting  money  somehow,  somewhere. 
The  next  day,  I  decided,  I  should  be  the 
victim  of  a  touch. 

But  my  prediction  failed;  Enwright 
seemed  to  have  plenty  of  money.  On  that 
first  evening  I  had  mentioned  to  him  that 
I  expected  shortly  to  be  in  London,  and 

30 


The  Agoay;  Column 


he  often  referred  to  the  fact  As  the  time 
approached  for  me  to  leave  Interlaken 
he  began  to  throw  out  the  suggestion  that 
he  should  like  to  have  me  meet  some  of 
his  people  in  England.  This,  also,  was 
(unheard  of — against  all  precedent. 

Nevertheless,  when  I  said  good-by  to 
him  he  pressed  into  my  hand  a  letter  of 
introduction  to  his  cousin,  Captain  Ste- 
phen Fraser-Freer,  of  the  Twelfth  Cav- 
alry, Indian  Army,  who,  he  said,  would 
be  glad  to  make  me  at  home  in  London, 
where  he  was  on  furlough  at  the  time — • 
or  would  be  when  I  reached  there. 

"Stephen's  a  good  sort,"  said  Enwright. 
"He'll  be  jolly  pleased  to  show  you  the 
ropes.  Give  him  my  best,  old  boy!" 

Of  course  I  took  the  letter.  But  I  puz- 
zled greatly  over  the  affair.  What  could 
be  the  meaning  of  this  sudden  warm  at- 


The  Agony;  Column 


tachment  that  Archie  had  formed  for  me? 
Why  should  he  want  to  pass  me  along 
to  his  cousin  at  a  time  when  that  gentle- 
man, back  home  after  two  years  in  India, 
would  be,  no  doubt,  extremely  busy?  I 
made  up  my  mind  I  would  not  present 
the  letter,  despite  the  fact  that  Archie  had 
with  great  persistence  wrung  from  me  a 
promise  to  do  so.  I  had  met  many  Eng- 
lish gentlemen,  and  I  felt  they  were  not 
the  sort — despite  the  example  of  Archie 
— to  take  a  wandering  American  to  their 
bosoms  when  he  came  with  a  mere  letter. 
By  easy  stagds  I  came  on  to  London. 
Here  I  met  a  friend,  just  sailing  for  home, 
who  told  me  of  some  sad  experiences  he 
had  had  with  letters  of  introduction — of 
the  cold,  fishy,  "My-dear-fellow-why- 
trouble-me-with-it?"  stares  that  had 
greeted  their  presentation.  Good-heart- 
32 


The  Agoay;  Column, 


ed  men  all,  he  said,  but  averse  to  stran- 
gers ;  an  ever-present  trait  in  the  English 
• — always  excepting  Archie. 

So  I  put  the  letter  to  Captain  Eraser- 
Freer  out  of  my  mind.  I  had  business  ac- 
quaintances here  and  a  few  English 
friends,  and  I  found  these,  as  always, 
courteous  and  charming.  But  it  is  to  my 
advantage  to  meet  as  many  people  as  may 
be,  and  after  drifting  about  for  a  week  I 
set  out  one  afternoon  to  call  on  my  cap- 
tain. I  told  myself  that  here  was  an  Eng- 
lishman who  had  perhaps  thawed  a  bit  in 
the  great  oven  of  India.  If  not,  no  harm 
would  be  done. 

It  was  then  that  I  came  for  the  first 
time  to  this  house  on  Adelphi  Terrace, 
for  it  was  the  address  Archie  had  given 
me.  Walters  let  me  in,  and  I  learned 
from  him  that  Captain  Eraser-Freer  had 

33 


The  Agoay;  Column 


not  yet  arrived  from  India.  His  rooms 
were  ready — he  had  kept  them  during  his 
absence,  as  seems  to  be  the  custom  over 
here — and  he  was  expected  soon.  Per- 
haps— said  Walters — his  wife  remem- 
bered the  date.  He  left  me  in  the  lower 
hall  while  he  went  to  ask  her. 

Waiting,  I  strolled  to  the  rear  of  the 
hall.  And  then,  through  an  open  window 
that  let  in  the  summer,  I  saw  for  the  first 
time  that  courtyard  which  is  my  great 
love  in  London  —  the  old  ivy-covered 
walls  of  brick;  the  neat  paths  between  the 
blooming  beds;  the  rustic  seat;  the  magic 
gate.  It  was  incredible  that  just  outside 
lay  the  world's  biggest  city,  with  all  its 
poverty  and  wealth,  its  sorrows  and  joys, 
its  roar  and  rattle.  Here  was  a  garden  for 
Jane  Austen  to  people  with  fine  ladies 

34 


The  Agony  Column 


and  courtly  gentlemen — here  was  a  gar- 
den to  dream  in,  to  adore  and  to  cherish. 

When  Walters  came  back  to  tell  me 
that  his  wife  was  uncertain  as  to  the  exact 
date  when  the  captain  would  return,  I 
began  to  rave  about  that  courtyard.  At 
once  he  was  my  friend.  I  had  been  look- 
ing for  quiet  lodgings  away  from  the 
hotel,  and  I  was  delighted  to  find  that  on 
the  second  floor,  directly  under  the  cap- 
tain's rooms,  there  was  a  suite  to  be  sub- 
let. 

Walters  gave  me  the  address  of  the 
agents ;  and,  after  submitting  to  an  exam- 
ination that  could  not  have  been  more  se- 
vere if  I  had  asked  for  the  hand  of  the 
senior  partner's  daughter,  they  let  me 
come  here  to  live.  The  garden  was  mine ! 

And  the  captain?    Three  days  after  I 

35 


The  AgoR£  Column 


arrived  I  heard  above  me,  for  the  first 
time,  the  tread  of  his  military  boots.  Now 
again  my  courage  began  to  fail.  I  should 
have  preferred  to  leave  Archie's  letter 
lying  in  my  desk  and  know  my  neighbor 
only  by  his  tread  above  me.  I  felt  that 
perhaps  I  had  been  presumptuous  in  com- 
ing to  live  in  the  same  house  with  him. 
But  I  had  represented  myself  to  Walters 
as  an  acquaintance  of  the  captain's  and  the 
caretaker  had  lost  no  time  in  telling  me 
that  "my  friend"  was  safely  home. 

So  one  night,  a  week  ago,  I  got  up  my 
nerve  and  went  to  the  captain's  rooms.  I 
knocked.  He  called  to  me  to  enter  and 
I  stood  in  his  study,  facing  him.  He  was 
a  tall  handsome  man,  fair-haired,  mus- 
tached — the  very  figure  that  you,  my  lady, 
in  your  boarding-school  days,  would  have 

36 


Column 


wished  him  to  be.  His  manner,  I  am 
bound  to  admit,  was  not  cordial. 

"Captain,"  I  began,  "I  am  very  sorry  to 
intrude — "  It  wasn't  the  thing  to  say,  of 
course,  but  I  was  fussed.  "However,  I 
happen  to  be  a  neighbor  of  yours,  and  I 
have  here  a  letter  of  introduction  from 
your  cousin,  Archibald  Enwright.  I  met 
him  in  Interlaken  and  we  became  very 
good  friends." 

"Indeed!"  said  the  captain. 

He  held  out  his  hand  for  the  letter,  as 
though  it  were  evidence  at  a  court-mar- 
tial. I  passed  it  over,  wishing  I  hadn't 
come.  He  read  it  through.  It  was  a  long 
letter,  considering  its  nature.  While  I 
waited,  standing  by  his  desk — he  hadn't 
asked  me  to  sit  down — I  looked  about  the 
room.  It  was  much  like  my  own  study, 

37 


The  Agoay;  Column 


only  I  think  a  little  dustier.  Being  on  the 
third  floor  it  was  farther  from  the  garden, 
consequently  Walters  reached  there  sel- 
dom. 

The  captain  turned  back  and  began  to 
read  the  letter  again.  This  was  decidedly 
embarrassing.  Glancing  down,  I  hap- 
pened, to  see  on  his  desk  an  odd  knife, 
which  I  fancy  he  had  brought  from  India. 
The  blade  was  of  steel,  dangerously  sharp, 
the  hilt  of  gold,  carved  to  represent  some 
heathen  figure. 

Then  the  captain  looked  up  from 
Archie's  letter  and  his  cold  gaze  fell  full 
upon  me. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  he  said,  "to  the  best 
of  my  knowledge,  I  have  no  cousin 
named  Archibald  Enwright." 

A  pleasant  situation,  you  must  admit! 
It's  bad  enough  when  you  come  to  them 

" 


The  Agony;  Column 


with  a  letter  from  their  mother,  but  here 
was  I  in  this  Englishman's  rooms,  boldly 
flaunting  in  his  face  a  warm  note  of  com- 
mendation from  a  cousin  who  did  not 
exist! 

"I  owe  you  an  apology,"  I  said.  I  tried 
to  be  as  haughty  as  he,  and  fell  short  by 
about  two  miles.  "I  brought  the  letter  in 
good  faith." 

"No  doubt  of  that,"  he  answered. 

"Evidently  it  was  given  me  by  some 
adventurer  for  purposes  of  his  own,"  I 
went  on;  "though  I  am  at  a  loss  to  guess 
what  they  could  have  been." 

"I'm  frightfully  sorry — really,"  said 
he.  But  he  said  it  with  the  London  in- 
flection, which  plainly  implies:  "Fm 
nothing  of  the  sort." 

A  painful  pause.  I  felt  that  he  ought  to 
give  me  back  the  letter;  but  he  made  no 

39 


The  Agon£  Column 


move  to  do  so.  And,  of  course,  I  didn't 
ask  for  it. 

"Ah — er — good  night,"  said  I,  and  hur- 
ried toward  the  door. 

"Good  night,"  he  answered,  and  I  left 
him  standing  there  with  Archie's  ac- 
cursed letter  in  his  hand. 

That  is  the  story  of  how  I  came  to  this 
house  in  Adelphi  Terrace.  There  is 
mystery  in  it,  you  must  admit,  my  lady. 
Once  or  twice  since  that  uncomfortable 
call  I  have  passed  the  captain  on  the 
stairs;  but  the  halls  are  very  dark,  and 
for  that  I  am  grateful.  I  hear  him  often 
above  me;  in  fact,  I  hear  him  as  I  write 
this. 

Who  was  Archie?  What  was  the  idea? 
I  wonder. 

Ah,  well,  I  have  my  garden,  and  for 
that  I  am  indebted  to  Archie  the  garru- 
40 


Column 


lous.  It  is  nearly  midnight  now.  The 
roar  of  London  has  died  away  to  a  fretful 
murmur,  and  somehow  across  this  baking 
town  a  breeze  has  found  its  way.  It  whis- 
pers over  the  green  grass,  in  the  ivy  that 
climbs  my  wall,  in  the  soft  murky  folds 
of  my  curtains.  Whispers — what? 

Whispers,  perhaps,  the  dreams  that  go 
with  this,  the  first  of  my  letters  to  you. 
They  are  dreams  that  even  I  dare  not 
whisper  yet. 

And  so — good  night. 

THE  STRAWBERRY  MAN. 


CHAPTER   III 

WITH  a  smile  that  betrayed  un- 
usual interest,  the  daughter  of 
the  Texas  statesman  read  that 
letter  on  Thursday  morning  in  her  room 
at  the  Carlton.  There  was  no  question 
about  it — the  first  epistle  from  the  straw- 
berry-mad one  had  caught  and  held  her 
attention.  All  day,  as  she  dragged  her 
father  through  picture  galleries,  she 
found  herself  looking  forward  to  another 
morning,  wondering,  eager. 

But  on  the  following  morning  Sadie 
Haight,  the  maid  through  whom  this  odd 
correspondence  was  passing,  had  no  letter 
to  deliver.  The  news  rather  disappointed 
the  daughter  of  Texas.  At  noon  she  in- 
42 


The  Agony;  Column 


sisted  on  returning  to  the  hotel  for  lunch- 
eon, though,  as  her  father  pointed  out, 
they  were  far  from  the  Carlton  at  the 
time.  Her  journey  was  rewarded.  Letter 
number  two  was  waiting;  and  as  she  read 
she  gasped. 

DEAR  LADY  AT  THE  CARLTON  :  I  am 
writing  this  at  three  in  the  morning,  with 
London  silent  as  the  grave,  beyond  our 
garden.  That  I  am  so  late  in  getting  to  it 
is  not  because  I  did  not  think  of  you  all 
day  yesterday;  not  because  I  did  not  sit 
down  at  my  desk  at  seven  last  evening  to 
address  you.  Believe  me,  only  the  most 
startling,  the  most  appalling  accident 
could  have  held  me  up. 

That  most  startling,  most  appalling  ac- 
cident has  happened* 

I  am  tempted  to  give  you  the  news  at 

43 


The  Agoay;  Column, 


once  in  one  striking  and  terrible  sentence. 
And  I  could  write  that  sentence.  A  trag- 
edy, wrapped  in  mystery  as  impenetra- 
ble as  a  London  fog,  has  befallen  our  quiet 
little  house  in  Adelphi  Terrace.  In  their 
basement  room  the  Walters  family,  sleep- 
less, overwhelmed,  sit  silent;  on  the  dark 
stairs  outside  my  door  I  hear  at  intervals 
the  tramp  of  men  on  unhappy  missions— 

But  no ;  I  must  go  back  to  the  very  start 
of  it  all : 

Last  night  I  had  an  early  dinner  at 
Simpson's,  in  the  Strand — so  early  that  I 
was  practically  alone  in  the  restaurant. 
The  letter  I  was  about  to  write  to  you  was 
uppermost  in  my  mind  and,  having 
quickly  dined,  I  hurried  back  to  my 
rooms.  I  remember  clearly  that,  as  I 
stood  in  the  street  before  our  house  fum- 
bling for  my  keys,  Big  Ben  on  the  Parlia- 

44 


Column 


ment  Buildings  struck  the  hour  of  seven. 
The  chime  of  the  great  bell  rang  out  in 
our  peaceful  thoroughfare  like  a  loud  and 
friendly  greeting. 

Gaining  my  study,  I  sat  down  at  once 
to  write.  Over  my  head  I  could  hear 
Captain  Fraser-Freer  moving  about — at- 
tiring himself,  probably,  for  dinner.  I 
Xvas  thinking,  with  an  amused  smile,  how 
horrified  he  would  be  if  he  knew  that  the 
crude  American  below  him  had  dined  at 
the  impossible  hour  of  six,  when  suddenly 
1  heard,  in  that  room  above  me,  some 
stranger  talking  in  a  harsh  determined 
tone.  Then  came  the  captain's  answering 
Voice,  calmer,  more  dignified.  This  con- 
versation went  along  for  some  time,  grow- 
ing each  moment  more  excited.  Though 
I  could  not  distinguish  a  word  of  it,  I  had 
the  uncomfortable  feeling  that  there  was 

45 


The  Agony  Column 


a  controversy  on ;  and  I  remember  feeling 
annoyed  that  any  one  should  thus  interfere 
with  my  composition  of  your  letter,  which 
I  regarded  as  most  important,  you  may  be 
sure. 

At  the  end  of  five  minutes  of  argument 
there  came  the  heavy  thump-thump  of 
men  struggling  above  me.  It  recalled  my 
college  days,  when  we  used  to  hear  the 
fellows  in  the  room  above  us  throwing 
each  other  about  in  an  excess  of  youth 
and  high  spirits.  But  this  seemed  more 
grim,  more  determined,  and  I  did  not  like 
it.  However,  I  reflected  that  it  was  none 
of  my  business.  I  tried  to  think  about 
my  letter. 

The  struggle  ended  with  a  particularly 
heavy  thud  that  shook  our  ancient  house 
to  its  foundations.  I  sat  listening,  some- 
how very  much  depressed.  There  was  no 


The  Agony;  Column 


further  sound.  It  was  not  entirely  dark 
outside — the  long  twilight — and  the  fru- 
gal Walters  had  not  lighted  the  hall 
lamps.  Somebody  was  coming  down  the 
stairs  very  quietly — but  their  creaking 
betrayed  him.  I  waited  for  him  to  pass 
through  the  shaft  of  light  that  poured 
from  the  door  open  at  my  back.  At  that 
moment  Fate  intervened  in  the  shape  of 
a  breeze  through  my  windows,  the  door 
banged  shut,  and  a  heavy  man  rushed  by 
me  in  the  darkness  and  ran  down  the 
stairs.  I  knew  he  was  heavy,  because  the 
passageway  was  narrow  and  he  had  to 
push  me  aside  to  get  by.  I  heard  him 
swear  beneath  his  breath. 

Quickly  I  went  to  a  hall  window  at  the 

far  end  that  looked  out  on  the  street.    But 

the  front  door  did  not  open ;  no  one  came 

out.    I  was  puzzled  for  a  second;  then  I 

47 


The  AgoRY  Column 


reentered  my  room  and  hurried  to  my 
balcony.  I  could  make  out  the  dim  figure 
of  a  man  running  through  the  garden  at 
the  rear — that  garden  of  which  I  have  so 
often  spoken.  He  did  not  try  to  open  the 
gate;  he  climbed  it,  and  so  disappeared 
from  sight  into  the  alley. 

For  a  moment  I  considered.  These 
were  odd  actions,  surely;  but  was  it  my 
place  to  interfere?  I  remembered  the 
cold  stare  in  the  eyes  of  Captain  Fraser- 
Freer  when  I  presented  that  letter.  I  saw 
him  standing  motionless  in  his  murky 
study,  as  amiable  as  a  statue.  Would  he 
welcome  an  intrusion  from  me  now? 

Finally  I  made  up  my  mind  to  forget 
these  things  and  went  down  to  find  Wal- 
ters. He  and  his  wife  were  eating  their 
dinner  in  the  basement.  I  told  him  what 
had  happened.  He  said  he  had  let  no 


The  Agony  Column 


visitor  in  to  see  the  captain,  and  was  in- 
clined to  view  my  misgivings  with  a  cold 
British  eye.  However,  I  persuaded  him 
to  go  with  me  to  the  captain's  rooms. 

The  captain's  door  was  open.  Remem- 
bering that  in  England  the  way  of  the 
intruder  is  hard,  I  ordered  Walters  to  go 
first.  He  stepped  into  the  room,  where 
the  gas  flickered  feebly  in  an  aged  chande- 
lier. 

"My  God,  sir!"  said  Walters,  a  servant 
even  now. 

And  at  last  I  write  that  sentence:  Cap- 
tain Fraser-Freer  of  the  Indian  Army  layj 
dead  on  the  floor,  a  smile  that  was  almost 
a  sneer  on  his  handsome  English  face! 

The  horror  of  it  is  strong  with  me  now 
as  I  sit  in  the  silent  morning  in  this  room 
of  mine  which  is  so  like  the  one  in  which 
the  captain  died.  He  had  been  stabbed 

49 


Column 


just  over  the  heart,  and  my  first  thought 
was  of  that  odd  Indian  knife  which  I  had 
seen  lying  on  his  study  table.  I  turned 
quickly  to  seek  it,  but  it  was  gone.  And  as 
I  looked  at  the  table  it  came  to  me  that 
here  in  this  dusty  room  there  must  be 
finger  prints — many  finger  prints. 

The  room  was  quite  in  order,  despite 
those  sounds  of  struggle.  One  or  two  odd 
matters  met  my  eye.  On  the  table  stood  a 
box  from  a  florist  in  Bond  Street.  The  lid 
had  been  removed  and  I  saw  that  the  box 
contained  a  number  of  white  asters.  Be- 
side the  box  lay  a  scarf-pin — an  emerald 
scarab.  And  not  far  from  the  captain's 
body  lay  what  is  known — owing  to  the 
German  city  where  it  is  made — as  a  Hom- 
burg  hat. 

I  recalled  that  it  is  most  important  at 
such  times  that  nothing  be  disturbed,  and 


The  Agoav  Column 


I  turned  to  old  Walters.  His  face  was  like 
this  paper  on  which  I  write;  his  knees 
trembled  beneath  him. 

"Walters,"  said  I,  "we  must  leave 
things  just  as  they  are  until  the  police  ar- 
rive. Come  with  me  while  I  notify  Scot- 
land Yard." 

"Very  good,  sir,"  said  Walters. 

We  went  down  then  to  the  telephone  in 
the  lower  hall,  and  I  called  up  the  Yard. 
I  was  told  that  an  inspector  would  come 
at  once  and  I  went  back  to  my  room  to 
wait  for  him. 

You  can  well  imagine  the  feelings  that 
were  mine  as  I  waited.  Before  this  mys- 
tery should  be  solved,  I  foresaw  that  I 
might  be  involved  to  a  degree  that  was 
unpleasant  if  not  dangerous.  Walters 
would  remember  that  I  first  came  here 
as  one  acquainted  with  the  captain.  He 


The  Agoav  Column 


had  noted,  I  felt  sure,  the  lack  of  intimacy 
between  the  captain  and  myself,  once  the 
former  arrived  from  India.  He  would 
no  doubt  testify  that  I  had  been  most  anx- 
ious to  obtain  lodgings  in  the  same  house 
with  Fraser-Freer.  Then  there  was  the 
matter  of  my  letter  from  Archie.  I  must 
keep  that  secret,  I  felt  sure.  Lastly,  there 
was  not  a  living  soul  to  back  me  up  in 
my  story  of  the  quarrel  that  preceded  the 
captain's  death,  of  the  man  who  escaped 
by  way  of  the  garden. 

Alas,  thought  I,  even  the  most  stupid 
policeman  can  not  fail  to  look  upon  me 
with  the  eye  of  suspicion! 

In  about  twenty  minutes  three  men  ar- 
rived from  Scotland  Yard.  By  that  time 
I  had  worked  myself  up  into  a  state  of 
absurd  nervousness.  I  heard  Walters  let 
them  in;  heard  them  climb  the  stairs  and 

52 


Column 


walk  about  in  the  room  overhead.  In  a 
short  time  Walters  knocked  at  my  door 
and  told  me  that  Chief  Inspector  Bray 
desired  to  speak  to  me.  As  I  preceded 
the  servant  up  the  stairs  I  felt  toward  him 
as  an  accused  murderer  must  feel  toward 
the  witness  who  has  it  in  his  power  to 
swear  his  life  away. 

He  was  a  big  active  man — Bray;  blond 
as  are  so  many  Englishmen.  His  every 
move  spoke  efficiency.  Trying  to  act  as 
unconcerned  as  an  innocent  man  should — • 
but  failing  miserably,  I  fear — I  related  to 
him  my  story  of  the  voices,  the  struggle, 
and  the  heavy  man  who  had  got  by  me  in 
the  hall  and  later  climbed  our  gate.  He 
listened  without  comment.  At  the  end  he 
said: 

"You  were  acquainted  with  the  cap- 
tain?" 

53 


The  Agoav  Column 


"Slightly,"  I  told  him.  Archie's  letter 
kept  popping  into  my  mind,  frightening 
me.  "I  had  just  met  him — that  is  all; 
through  a  friend  of  his — Archibald  En- 
wright  was  the  name." 

"Is  Enwright  in  London  to  vouch  for 
you?" 

"I'm  afraid  not.  I  last  heard  of  him  in 
Interlaken." 

"Yes?  How  did  you  happen  to  take 
rooms  in  this  house?" 

"The  first  time  I  called  to  see  the  cap- 
tain he  had  not  yet  arrived  from  India.  I 
was  looking  for  lodgings  and  I  took  a 
great  fancy  to  the  garden  here." 

It  sounded  silly,  put  like  that.  I  wasn't 
surprised  that  the  inspector  eyed  me  with 
scorn.  But  I  rather  wished  he  hadn't. 

Bray  began  to  walk  about  the  room, 
ignoring  me. 

54 


The  AgoRY  Column 


"White  asters;  scarab  pin;  Homburg 
hat,"  he  detailed,  pausing  before  the  table 
where  those  strange  exhibits  lay. 

A  constable  came  forward  carrying 
newspapers  in  his  hand. 

"What  is  it?"  Bray  asked. 

"The  Dally  Mail,  sir,"  said  the  con- 
stable. "The  issues  of  July  twenty-sev- 
enth, twenty-eighth,  twenty-ninth  and 
thirtieth." 

Bray  took  the  papers  in  his  hand, 
glanced  at  them  and  tossed  them  contemp- 
tuously into  a  waste-basket.  He  turned  to 
Walters. 

"Have  you  notified  the  captain's  fam- 
ily?" he  asked. 

"Sorry,  sir,"  said  Walters;  "but  I  was 
BO  taken  aback!  Nothing  like  this  has 
ever  happened  to  me  before.  I'll  go  at 


pnce — " 


Column 


"No,"  replied  Bray  sharply.  "Never 
mind.  I'll  attend  to  it — " 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  Bray 
called  "Come!"  and  a  slender  boy,  frail 
but  with  a  military  bearing,  entered. 

"Hello,  Walters!"  he  said,  smiling. 
4 What's  up?  I—" 

He  stopped  suddenly  as  his  eyes  fell 
upon  the  divan  where  Fraser-Freer  lay. 
In  an  instant  he  was  at  the  dead  man's 
side. 

"Stephen!"  he  cried  in  anguish. 

"Who  are  you?"  demanded  the  inspec- 
tor— rather  rudely,  I  thought. 

"It's  the  captain's  brother,  sir,"  put  in 
Walters.  "Lieutenant  Norman  Fraser- 
Freer,  of  the  Royal  Fusiliers." 

There  fell  a  silence. 

"A  great  calamity,  sir — "  began  Wal- 
ters to  the  boy. 

56 


The  Agony;  Column 


I  have  rarely  seen  any  one  so  overcome 
as  young  Fraser-Freer.  Watching  him,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  the  affection  existing 
between  him  and  the  man  on  the  divan 
must  have  been  a  beautiful  thing.  He 
turned  away  from  his  brother  at  last,  and 
Walters  sought  to  give  him  some  idea  of 
what  had  happened. 

"You  will  pardon  me,  gentlemen,"  said 
the  lieutenant.  "This  has  been  a  terrible 
shock!  I  didn't  dream,  of  course — I  just 
dropped  in  for  a  word  with — with  him. 
And  now — " 

We  said  nothing.  We  let  him  apolo- 
gize, as  a  true  Englishman  must,  for  his 
public  display  of  emotion. 

"I'm  sorry,"  Bray  remarked  in  a  mo- 
ment, his  eyes  still  shifting  about  the  room 
« — "especially  as  England  may  soon  have 
great  need  of  men  like  the  captain.  Now, 
57 


The  Agony;  Column 


gentlemen,  I  want  to  say  this:  I  am  the 
Chief  of  the  Special  Branch  at  the  Yard. 
This  is  no  ordinary  murder.  For  reasons 
I  can  not  disclose — and,  I  may  add,  for 
the  best  interests  of  the  empire — news  of 
the  captain's  tragic  death  must  be  kept 
for  the  present  out  of  the  newspapers.  I 
mean,  of  course,  the  manner  of  his  going. 
A  mere  death  notice,  you  understand — 
the  inference  being  that  it  was  a  natural 
taking  off." 

"I  understand,"  said  the  lieutenant,  as 
one  who  knows  more  than  he  tells. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Bray.  "I  shall  leave 
you  to  attend  to  the  matter,  as  far  as  your 
family  is  concerned.  You  will  take  charge 
of  the  body.  As  for  the  rest  of  you,  I  for- 
bid you  to  mention  this  matter  outside." 

And  now  Bray  stood  looking,  with  a 
puzzled  air,  at  me. 


Column  i 


"You  are  an  American?"  he  said,  and  I 
judged  he  did  not  care  for  Americans. 

"I  am,"  I  told  him. 

"Know  any  one  at  your  consulate?"  he 
'demanded. 

Thank  heaven,  I  did!  There  is  an  un- 
der-secretary  there  named  Watson — I 
went  to  college  with  him.  I  mentioned 
him  to  Bray. 

"Very  good,"  said  the  inspector.  "You 
are  free  to  go.  But  you  must  understand 
that  you  are  an  important  witness  in  this 
case,  and  if  you  attempt  to  leave  London 
you  will  be  locked  up." 

So  I  came  back  to  my  rooms,  horribly 
entangled  in  a  mystery  that  is  little  to  my 
liking.  I  have  been  sitting  here  in  my 
study  for  some  time,  going  over  it  again 
and  again.  There  have  been  many  foot- 
steps on  the  stairs,  many  voices  in  the  hall* 

59 


The  Agon£  Column 


Waiting  here  for  the  dawn,  I  have 
come  to  be  very  sorry  for  the  cold  hand- 
some captain.  After  all,  he  was  a  man; 
his  very  tread  on  the  floor  above,  which  I 
shall  never  hear  again,  told  me  that. 

What  does  it  all  mean?  Who  was  the 
man  in  the  hall,  the  man  who  had  argued 
so  loudly,  who  had  struck  so  surely  with 
that  queer  Indian  knife?  Where  is  the 
knife  now? 

And,  above  all,  what  do  the  white  asters 
signify?  And  the  scarab  scarf-pin?  And 
that  absurd  Homburg  hat? 

Lady  of  the  Carlton,  you  wanted  mys- 
tery. When  I  wrote  that  first  letter  to 
you,  little  did  I  dream  that  I  should  soon 
liave  it  to  give  you  in  overwhelming 
measure. 

And — believe  me  when  I  say  it — • 
through  all  this  your  face  has  been  con- 
60 


The  Agoav  Column 


stantly  before  me — your  face  as  I  saw  it 
that  bright  morning  in  the  hotel  breakfast 
room.  You  have  forgiven  me,  I  know,  for 
the  manner  in  which  I  addressed  you.  I 
had  seen  your  eyes  and  the  temptation  was 
great — very  great. 

It  is  dawn  in  the  garden  now  and  Lon- 
;don  is  beginning  to  stir.  So  this  time  it  is 
* — good  morning,  my  lady. 

THE  STRAWBERRY  MAN. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IfE  IS  hardly  necessary  to  intimate  that 
this  letter  came  as  something  of  a 
shock  to  the  young  woman  who  re- 
ceived it.  For  the  rest  of  that  day  the 
many  sights  of  London  held  little  inter- 
est for  her — so  little,  indeed,  that  her  per- 
spiring father  began  to  see  visions  of  his 
beloved  Texas;  and  once  hopefully  sug- 
gested an  early  return  home.  The  cool- 
ness with  which  this  idea  was  received 
plainly  showed  him  that  he  was  on  the 
wrong  track ;  so  he  sighed  and  sought  sol- 
ace at  the  bar. 

That  night  the  two   from  Texas  at- 
tended   His    Majesty's    Theater,    where 
62 


The  Agony;  Column, 


Bernard  Shaw's  latest  play  was  being  per- 
formed; and  the  witty  Irishman  would 
have  been  annoyed  to  see  the  scant  atten- 
tion one  lovely  young  American  in  the 
audience  gave  his  lines.  The  American  in 
question  retired  at  midnight,  with  eager 
thoughts  turned  toward  the  morning. 

And  she  was  not  disappointed.  When 
her  maid,  a  stolid  Englishwoman,  ap- 
peared at  her  bedside  early  Saturday  she 
carried  a  letter,  which  she  handed  over, 
with  the  turned-up  nose  of  one  who  aids 
but  does  not  approve.  Quickly  the  girl 
tore  it  open. 

DEAR  TEXAS  LADY:  I  am  writing  this 
late  in  the  afternoon.  The  sun  is  casting 
long  black  shadows  on  the  garden  lawn, 
and  the  whole  world  is  so  bright  and  mat- 
ter-of-fact I  have  to  argue  with  myself  to 

63 


The  Agoav  Column 


be  convinced  that  the  events  of  that  tragic 
night  through  which  I  passed  really  hap- 
pened. 

The  newspapers  this  morning  helped  to 
make  it  all  seem  a  dream ;  not  a  line — not 
a  word,  that  I  can  find.  When  I  think  of 
[America,  and  how  by  this  time  the  re- 
porters would  be  swarming  through  our 
house  if  this  thing  had  happened  over 
there,  I  am  the  more  astonished.  But 
then,  I  know  these  English  papers.  The 
great  Joe  Chamberlain  died  the  other 
night  at  ten,  and  it  was  noon  the  next  day 
when  the  first  paper  to  carry  the  story 
appeared — screaming  loudly  that  it  had 
scored  a  beat.  It  had.  Other  lands,  other 
methods. 

It  was  probably  not  difficult  for  Bray 
to  keep  journalists  such  as  these  in  the 
<iark.  So  their  great  ungainly  sheets 


Column 


come  out  in  total  ignorance  of  a  remark- 
able story  in  Adelphi  Terrace.  Famished 
for  real  news,  they  begin  to  hint  at  a  huge 
war  cloud  on  the  horizon.  Because  tot- 
tering Austria  has  declared  war  on  tiny 
Serbia,  because  the  Kaiser  is  to-day  hur- 
rying, with  his  best  dramatic  effect,  home 
to  Berlin,  they  see  all  Europe  shortly 
bathed  in  blood.  A  nightmare  born  of 
torrid  days  and  tossing  nights! 

But  it  is  of  the  affair  in  Adelphi  Ter- 
race that  you  no  doubt  want  to  hear.  One 
sequel  of  the  tragedy,  which  adds  im- 
measurably to  the  mystery  of  it  all,  has 
occurred,  and  I  alone  am  responsible  for 
its  discovery.  But  to  go  back: 

I  returned  from  mailing  your  letter  at 

fdawn  this  morning,  very  tired  from  the 

tension  of  the  night.    I  went  to  bed,  but 

could  not  sleep.    More  and  more  it  was 

65 


Column 


preying  on  my  mind  that  I  was  in  a  most 
unhappy  position.  I  had  not  liked  the 
looks  cast  at  me  by  Inspector  Bray,  or  his 
voice  when  he  asked  how  I  came  to  live 
in  this  house.  I  told  myself  I  should  not 
be  safe  until  the  real  murderer  of  the  poor 
captain  was  found ;  and  so  I  began  to  puz- 
zle over  the  few  clues  in  the  case — espe- 
cially over  the  asters,  the  scarab  pin  and 
the  Homburg  hat. 

It  was  then  I  remembered  the  four 
copies  of  the  Daily  Mall  that  Bray  had 
casually  thrown  into  the  waste-basket  as 
of  no  interest.  I  had  glanced  over  his 
shoulder  as  he  examined  these  papers,  and 
had  seen  that  each  of  them  was  folded  so 
that  our  favorite  department — the  Agony 
Column — was  uppermost.  It  happened 
I  had  in  my  desk  copies  of  the  Mail  for 
the  past  week.  You  will  understand  why. 
66 


f 

The  Agony;  Column 


I  rose,  found  those  papers,  and  began 
to  read.  It  was  then  that  I  made  the  as- 
tounding discovery  to  which  I  have  al- 
luded. 

For  a  time  after  making  it  I  was  dumb 
with  amazement,  so  that  no  course  of  ac- 
tion came  readily  to  mind.  In  the  end  I 
decided  that  the  thing  for  me  to  do  was 
to  wait  for  Bray's  return  in  the  morning 
and  then  point  out  to  him  the  error  he  had 
made  in  ignoring  the  Mail. 

Bray  came  in  about  eight  o'clock  and  a 
few  minutes  later  I  heard  another  man 
ascend  the  stairs.  I  was  shaving  at  the 
time,  but  I  quickly  completed  the  opera- 
tion and,  slipping  on  a  bathrobe,  hurried 
up  to  the  captain's  rooms.  The  younger 
brother  had  seen  to  the  removal  of  the  un- 
fortunate man's  body  in  the  night,  and, 
aside  from  Bray  and  the  stranger  who  had 


The  Agony  Column 


arrived  almost  simultaneously  with  him, 
there  was  no  one  but  a  sleepy-eyed  con- 
stable there. 

Bray's  greeting  was  decidedly  grouchy. 
The  stranger,  however — a  tall  bronzed 
man — made  himself  known  to  me  in  the 
most  cordial  manner.  He  told  me  he  was 
Colonel  Hughes,  a  close  friend  of  the 
dead  man;  and  that,  unutterably  shocked 
and  grieved,  he  had  come  to  inquire 
whether  there  was  anything  he  might  do. 

"Inspector,"  said  I,  "last  night  in  this 
room  you  held  in  your  hand  four  copies 
of  the  Daily  Mall.  You  tossed  them  into 
that  basket  as  of  no  account.  May  I  sug- 
gest that  you  rescue  those  copies,  as  I  have 
a  rather  startling  matter  to  make  clear  to 
you?"  Too  grand  an  official  to  stoop  to  a 
waste-basket,  he  nodded  to  the  constable. 
The  latter  brought  the  papers;  and,  se- 
68 


Column 


lecting  one  from  the  lot,  I  spread  it  out 
on  the  table.  "The  issue  of  July  twenty- 
seventh,"  I  said. 

I  pointed  to  an  item  half-way  down  the 
column  of  Personal  Notices.  You  your- 
self, my  lady,  may  read  it  there  if  you 
happen  to  have  saved  a  copy.  It  ran  as 
follows : 

"RANGOON:  The  asters  are  in  full 
bloom  in  the  garden  at  Canterbury.  They 
are  very  beautiful — especially  the  white 


ones." 


Bray  grunted,  and  opened  his  little 
eyes.  I  took  up  the  issue  of  the  following 
day — the  twenty-eighth : 

"RANGOON :  We  have  been  forced  to  sell 
father's  stick-pin — the  emerald  scarab  he 
brought  home  from  Cairo." 

I  had  Bray's  interest  now.    He  leaned 


Column 


heavily  toward  me,  puffing.  Greatly  ex- 
cited, I  held  before  his  eyes  the  issue  of 
the  twenty-ninth : 

"RANGOON:     Homburg  hat  gone  for- 
ever— caught    by    a    breeze — into    the 


river." 


"And  finally,"  said  I  to  the  inspector, 
"the  last  message  of  all,  in  the  issue  of  the 
thirtieth  of  July— on  sale  in  the  streets 
some  twelve  hours  before  Fraser-Freer 
was  murdered.  See!" 

"RANGOON:  To-night  at  ten.  Regent 
Street.— Y.  O.  G." 

Bray  was  silent. 

"I  take  it  you  are  aware,  Inspector,"  I 
said,  "that  for  the  past  two  years  Captain 
Fraser-Freer  was  stationed  at  Rangoon." 

Still  he  said  nothing;  just  looked  at  me 
with  those  foxy  little  eyes  that  I  was  com- 
ing to  detest.    At  last  he  spoke  sharply: 
70 


Column 


"Just  how,"  he  demanded,  "did  you 
happen  to  discover  those  messages?  You 
were  not  in  this  room  last  night  after  I 
left?"  He  turned  angrily  to  the  consta- 
ble. "I  gave  orders — " 

"No,"  I  put  in ;  "I  was  not  in  this  room. 
I  happened  to  have  on  file  in  my  rooms 
copies  of  the  Mail,  and  by  the  merest 
chance — " 

I  saw  that  I  had  blundered.  Undoubt- 
edly my  discovery  of  those  messages  was 
too  pat.  Once  again  suspicion  looked  my 
way. 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  said  Bray. 
"I'll  keep  this  in  mind." 

"Have  you  communicated  with  my 
friend  at  the  consulate?"  I  asked. 

"Yes.    That's  all.    Good  morning." 

So  I  went. 

I  had  been  back  in  my  room  some 


Column 


twenty  minutes  when  there  came  a  knock 
on  the  door,  and  Colonel  Hughes  entered. 
He  was  a  genial  man,  in  the  early  forties 
I  should  say,  tanned  by  some  sun  not  Eng- 
lish, and  gray  at  the  temples. 

"My  dear  sir,"  he  said  without  pre- 
amble, "this  is  a  most  appalling  business  1" 

"Decidedly,"  I  answered.  "Will  you 
sit  down?" 

"Thank  you."  He  sat  and  gazed 
frankly  into  my  eyes.  "Policemen,"  he 
added  meaningly,  "are  a  most  suspicious 
tribe — often  without  reason.  I  am  sorry 
you  happen  to  be  involved  in  this  affair, 
for  I  may  say  that  I  fancy  you  to  be  ex- 
actly what  you  seem.  May  I  add  that,  if 
you  should  ever  need  a  friend,  I  am  at 
your  service?" 

I  was  touched;  I  thanked  him  as  best 
I  could.  His  tone  was  so  sympathetic  and 
72 


The  Agony  Column 


kindly,  and,  above  all,  so  sincere,  that  be- 
fore I  realized  it  I  was  telling  him  the 
whole  story — of  Archie  and  his  letter;  of 
my  falling  in  love  with  a  garden;  of  the 
startling  discovery  that  the  captain  had 
never  heard  of  his  cousin ;  and  of  my  sub- 
sequent unpleasant  position.  He  leaned 
back  in  his  chair  and  closed  his  eyes. 

"I  suppose,"  he  said,  "that  no  man  ever 
carries  an  unsealed  letter  of  introduction 
without  opening  it  to  read  just  what 
praises  have  been  lavished  upon  him.  It 
is  human  nature — I  have  done  it  often. 
May  I  make  so  bold  as  to  inquire — " 

"Yes,"  said  I.  "It  was  unsealed  and  I 
'did  read  it.  Considering  its  purpose,  it 
struck  me  as  rather  long.  There  were 
many  warm  words  for  me — words  beyond 
all  reason  in  view  of  my  brief  acquaint- 
ance with  Enwright.  I  also  recall  that  he 

73 


The  Agony  Column 


mentioned  how  long  he  had  been  in  Inter- 
laken,  and  that  he  said  he  expected  to 
reach  London  about  the  first  of  August." 

"The  first  of  August,"  repeated  the 
colonel.  "That  is  to-morrow.  Now — if 
you'll  be  so  kind — just  what  happened 
last  night?" 

Again  I  ran  over  the  events  of  that 
tragic  evening — the  quarrel;  the  heavy 
figure  in  the  hall ;  the  escape  by  way  of  the 
seldom-used  gate. 

"My  boy,"  said  Colonel  Hughes  as  he 
rose  to  go,  "the  threads  of  this  tragedy 
stretch  far — some  of  them  to  India;  some 
to  a  country  I  will  not  name.  I  may  say 
frankly  that  I  have  other  and  greater  in- 
terest in  the  matter  than  that  of  the  cap- 
tain's friend.  For  the  present  that  is  in 
strict  confidence  between  us;  the  police 
are  well-meaning,  but  they  sometimes 

74 


The  Agony;  Column 


blunder.  Did  I  understand  you  to  say 
that  you  have  copies  of  the  Mail  contain- 
ing those  odd  messages?" 

"Right  here  in  my  desk,"  said  I.  I  got 
them  for  him. 

"I  think  I  shall  take  them — if  I  may," 
he  said.  "You  will,  of  course,  not  men- 
tion this  little  visit  of  mine.  We  shall 
meet  again.  Good  morning." 

And  he  went  away,  carrying  those  pa- 
pers with  their  strange  signals  to  Ran- 
goon. 

Somehow  I  feel  wonderfully  cheered 
by  his  call.  For  the  first  time  since  seven 
last  evening  I  begin  to  breathe  freely 
again. 

And  so,  lady  who  likes  mystery,  the 
matter  stands  on  the  afternoon  of  the  last 
day  of  July,  nineteen  hundred  and  four- 
teen. 

75 


Column 


I  shall  mail  you  this  letter  to-night.  It 
is  my  third  to  you,  and  it  carries  with  it 
three  times  the  dreams  that  went  with  the 
first;  for  they  are  dreams  that  live  not 
only  at  night,  when  the  moon  is  on  the 
courtyard,  but  also  in  the  bright  light  of 
rday. 

Yes — I  am  remarkably  cheered.  I  re- 
alize that  I  have  not  eaten  at  all — save  a 
cup  of  coffee  from  the  trembling  hand  of 
Walters — since  last  night,  at  Simpson's. 
I  am  going  now  to  dine.  I  shall  begin 
with  grapefruit.  I  realize  that  I  am  sud- 
'denly  very  fond  of  grapefruit. 

How  bromidic  to  note  it — we  have 
many  tastes  in  common ! 

EX-STRAWBERRY  MAN. 

The  third  letter  from  her  correspond- 
ent of  the  Agony  Column  increased  in  the 
mind  of  the  lovely  young  woman  at  the 


The  Agoav  Column 


Carlton  the  excitement  and  tension  the 
second  had  created.  For  a  long  time,  on 
the  Saturday  morning  of  its  receipt,  she 
sat  in  her  room  puzzling  over  the  mys- 
tery of  the  house  in  Adelphi  Terrace. 
When  first  she  had  heard  that  Captain 
Fraser-Freer,  of  the  Indian  Army,  was 
dead  of  a  knife  wound  over  the  heart,  the 
news  had  shocked  her  like  that  of  the  loss 
of  some  old  and  dear  friend.  She  had  de- 
sired passionately  the  apprehension  of  his 
murderer,  and  had  turned  over  and  over 
in  her  mind  the  possibilities  of  white  as- 
ters, a  scarab  pin  and  a  Hemburg  hat. 

Perhaps  the  girl  longed  for  the  arrest 
of  the  guilty  man  thus  keenly  because  this 
jaunty  young  friend  of  hers — a  friend 
whose  name  she  did  not  know — to  whom, 
indeed,  she  had  never  spoken — was  so 
dangerously  entangled  in  the  affair.  For, 

77 


Column 


from  what  she  knew  of  Geoffrey  West, 
from  her  casual  glance  in  the  restaurant 
and,  far  more,  from  his  letters,  she  liked 
him  extremely. 

And  now  came  his  third  letter,  in  which 
he  related  the  connection  of  that  hat,  that 
pin  and  those  asters  with  the  column  in 
the  Mail  which  had  first  brought  them  to- 
gether. As  it  happened,  she,  too,  had 
copies  of  the  paper  for  the  first  four  days 
of  the  week.  She  went  to  her  sitting- 
room,  unearthed  these  copies,  and — 
gasped!  For  from  the  column  in  Mon- 
day's paper  stared  up  at  her  the  cryptic 
words  to  Rangoon  concerning  asters  in  a 
garden  at  Canterbury.  In  the  other  three 
issues  as  wrell,  she  found  the  identical  mes- 
sages her  strawberry  man  had  quoted. 
She  sat  for  a  moment  in  deep  thought; 
sat,  in  fact,  until  at  her  door  came  the  en- 

78 


The  Agony;  Column 


raged  knocking  of  a  hungry  parent  who 
had  been  waiting  a  full  hour  in  the  lobby 
below  for  her  to  join  him  at  breakfast. 

"Come,  come!"  boomed  her  father,  en- 
tering at  her  invitation.  "Don't  sit  here 
all  day  mooning.  I'm  hungry  if  you're 
not." 

With  quick  apologies  she  made  ready 
to  accompany  him  down-stairs.  Firmly, 
as  she  planned  their  campaign  for  the 
day,  she  resolved  to  put  from  her  mind  all 
thought  of  Adelphi  Terrace.  How  well 
she  succeeded  may  be  judged  from  a 
speech  made  by  her  father  that  night  just 
before  dinner: 

"Have  you  lost  your  tongue,  Marian? 
You're  as  uncommunicative  as  a  newly- 
elected  office-holder.  If  you  can't  get  a 
little  more  life  into  these  expeditions  of 
ours  we'll  pack  up  and  head  for  home." 

79 


The  Agony  Column 


She  smiled,  patted  his  shoulder  and 
promised  to  improve.  But  he  appeared 
to  be  in  a  gloomy  mood. 

"I  believe  we  ought  to  go,  anyhow,"  he 
went  on.  "In  my  opinion  this  war  is  go- 
ing to  spread  like  a  prairie  fire.  The 
Kaiser  got  back  to  Berlin  yesterday. 
He'll  sign  the  mobilization  orders  to-day 
as  sure  as  fate.  For  the  past  week,  on  the 
Berlin  Bourse,  Canadian  Pacific  stock  has 
been  dropping.  That  means  they  expect 
England  to  come  in." 

He  gazed  darkly  into  the  future.  It 
may  seem  that,  for  an  American  states- 
man, he  had  an  unusual  grasp  of  Euro- 
pean politics.  This  is  easily  explained  by 
the  fact  that  he  had  been  talking  with  the 
bootblack  at  the  Carlton  Hotel. 

"Yes,"  he  said  with  sudden  decision, 
"I'll  go  down  to  the  steamship  offices 
early  Monday  morning — " 
80 


CHAPTER  V, 

HIS  daughter  heard  these  words 
with  a  sinking  heart.  She  had  a 
most  unhappy  picture  of  her- 
self boarding  a  ship  and  sailing  out  of 
Liverpool  or  Southampton,  leaving  the 
mystery  that  so  engrossed  her  thoughts 
forever  unsolved.  Wisely  she  diverted 
her  father's  thoughts  toward  the  question 
of  food.  She  had  heard,  she  said,  that 
Simpson's,  in  the  Strand,  was  an  excellent 
place  to  dine.  They  would  go  there,  and 
walk.  She  suggested  a  short  detour  that 
would  carry  them  through  Adelphi  Ter- 
race. It  seemed  she  had  always  wanted 
to  see  Adelphi  Terrace. 
81 


The  AgoRY  Column 


As  they  passed  through  that  silent  street 
she  sought  to  guess,  from  an  inspection 
of  the  grim  forbidding  house  fronts,  back 
of  which  lay  the  lovely  garden,  the  ro- 
mantic mystery.  But  the  houses  were  so 
very  much  like  one  another.  Before  one 
of  them,  she  noted,  a  taxi  waited. 

After  dinner  her  father  pleaded  for  a 
music-hall  as  against  what  he  called 
"some  highfaluting,  teacup  English 
play."  He  won.  Late  that  night,  as  they 
rode  back  to  the  Carlton,  special  editions 
were  being  proclaimed  in  the  streets. 
Germany  was  mobilizing! 

The  girl  from  Texas  retired,  wonder- 
ing what  epistolary  surprise  the  morning 
would  bring  forth.  It  brought  forth  this : 

DEAR  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  SENATE  :   Or 
Is  it  Congress?    I  could  not  quite  decide. 
But  surely  in  one  or  the  other  of  those 
82 


The  Agony;  Column 


august  bodies  your  father  sits  when  he  is 
not  at  home  in  Texas  or  viewing  Europe 
through  his  daughter's  eyes.  One  look  at 
him  and  I  had  gathered  that. 

But  Washington  is  far  from  London, 
isn't  it?  And  it  is  London  that  interests 
us  most — though  father's  constituents 
must  not  know  that.  It  is  really  a  wonder- 
ful, an  astounding  city,  once  you  have  got 
the  feel  of  the  tourist  out  of  your  soul.  I 
have  been  reading  the  most  enthralling 
essays  on  it,  written  by  a  newspaper  man 
who  first  fell  desperately  in  love  with  it 
at  seven — an  age  when  the  whole  glitter- 
ing town  was  symbolized  for  him  by  the 
fried-fish  shop  at  the  corner  of  the  High 
Street.  With  him  I  have  been  going 
through  its  gray  and  furtive  thorough- 
fares in  the  dead  of  night,  and  sometimes 
we  have  kicked  an  ash-barrel  and  some- 

83 


Column 


times  a  romance.  Some  day  I  might  show 
that  London  to  you — guarding  you,  of 
course,  from  the  ash-barrels,  if  you  are 
that  kind.  On  second  thoughts,  you  aren't. 

But  I  know  that  it  is  of  Adelphi  Ter- 
race and  a  late  captain  in  the  Indian 
Army  that  you  want  to  hear  now.  Yester- 
day, after  my  discovery  of  those  messages 
in  the  Mail  and  the  call  of  Captain 
Hughes,  passed  without  incident.  Last 
night  I  mailed  you  my  third  letter,  and 
after  wandering  for  a  time  amid  the  al- 
ternate glare  and  gloom  of  the  city,  I  went 
back  to  my  rooms  and  smoked  on  my  bal- 
cony while  about  me  the  inmates  of  six 
million  homes  sweltered  in  the  heat. 

Nothing  happened.  I  felt  a  bit  disap- 
pointed, a  bit  cheated,  as  one  might  feel 
on  the  first  night  spent  at  home  after  many 
successive  visits  to  exciting  plays.  To- 


The  Agoit£  Column 


Hay,  the  first  of  August  dawned,  and  still 
all  was  quiet.  Indeed,  it  was  not  until 
this  evening  that  further  developments  in 
the  sudden  death  of  Captain  Fraser-Freer 
arrived  to  disturb  me.  These  develop- 
ments are  strange  ones  surely,  and  I  shall 
hasten  to  relate  them. 

I  dined  to-night  at  a  little  place  in 
Soho.  My  waiter  was  Italian,  and  on  him 
I  amused  myself  with  the  Italian  in  Ten 
Lessons  of  which  I  am  foolishly  proud. 
We  talked  of  Fiesole,  where  he  had  lived. 
Once  I  rode  from  Fiesole  down  the  hill  to 
Florence  in  the  moonlight.  I  remember 
endless  walls  on  which  hung  roses,  fresK 
and  blooming.  I  remember  a  gaunt  nun- 
nery and  two-gray-robed  sisters  clang- 
ing shut  the  gates.  I  remember  the 
searchlight  from  the  military  encamp- 
ment, playing  constantly  over  the  Arno 

85 


The  Agony;  Column 


and  the  roofs — the  eye  of  Mars  that,  here 
in  Europe,  never  closes.  And  always  the 
flowers  nodding  above  me,  stooping  now 
and  then  to  brush  my  face.  I  came  to 
think  that  at  the  end  Paradise,  and  not  a 
second-rate  hotel,  was  waiting.  One  may 
still  take  that  ride,  I  fancy.  Some  day — • 
some  day — 

I  dined  in  Soho.  I  came  back  to  Adel- 
phi  Terrace  in  the  hot,  reeking  August 
dusk,  reflecting  that  the  mystery  in  which 
I  was  involved  was,  after  a  fashion,  stand- 
ing still.  In  front  of  our  house  I  noticed 
a  taxi  waiting.  I  thought  nothing  of  it  as 
I  entered  the  murky  hallway  and  climbed 
the  familiar  stairs. 

My  door  stood  open.  It  was  dark  in 
my  study,  save  for  the  reflection  of  the 
lights  of  London  outside.  As  I  crossed 
86 


The  Agony  Column 


the  threshold  there  came  to  my  nostrils 
the  faint  sweet  perfume  of  lilacs.  There 
are  no  lilacs  in  our  garden,  and  if  there 
were  it  is  not  the  season.  No,  this  per- 
fume had  been  brought  there  by  a  woman 
— a  woman  who  sat  at  my  desk  and  raised 
her  head  as  I  entered. 

"You  will  pardon  this  intrusion,"  she 
said  in  the  correct  careful  English  of  one 
who  has  learned  the  speech  from  a  book. 
"I  have  come  for  a  brief  word  with  you — 
then  I  shall  go." 

I  could  think  of  nothing  to  say.  I  stood 
gaping  like  a  schoolboy. 

"My  word,"  the  woman  went  on,  "is  in 
the  nature  of  advice.  We  do  not  always 
like  those  who  give  us  advice.  None  the 
less,  I  trust  that  you  will  listen." 

I  found  my  tongue  then. 


Column 


"I  am  listening,"  I  said  stupidly.  "But 
first — a  light — "  And  I  moved  toward 
the  matches  on  the  mantelpiece. 

Quickly  the  woman  rose  and  faced  me. 
I  saw  then  that  she  wore  a  veil — not  a 
heavy  veil,  but  a  fluffy,  attractive  thing 
that  was  yet  sufficient  to  screen  her  fea- 
tures from  me. 

"I  beg  of  you,"  she  cried,  "no  light!" 
And  as  I  paused,  undecided,  she  added, 
in  a  tone  which  suggested  lips  that  pout: 
"It  is  such  a  little  thing  to  ask — surely  you 
will  not  refuse." 

I  suppose  I  should  have  insisted.  But 
her  voice  was  charming,  her  manner  per- 
fect, and  that  odor  of  lilacs  reminiscent 
of  a  garden  I  knew  long  ago,  at  home. 

"Very  well,"  said  I. 

"Oh — I  am  grateful  to  you,"  she  an- 
swered. Her  tone  changed.  "I  under- 


Column 


stand  that,  shortly  after  seven  o'clock  last 
Thursday  evening,  you  heard  in  the  room 
above  you  the  sounds  of  a  struggle.  Such 
has  been  your  testimony  to  the  police?" 

"It  has,"  said  I. 

"Are  you  quite  certain  as  to  the  hour?" 
I  felt  that  she  was  smiling  at  me.  "Might 
it  not  have  been  later — or  earlier?" 

"I  am  sure  it  was  just  after  seven,"  I 
replied.  "I'll  tell  you  why:  I  had  just 
returned  from  dinner  and  while  I  was  un- 
locking the  door  Big  Ben  on  the  House 
of  Parliament  struck — " 

She  raised  her  hand. 

"No  matter,"  she  said,  and  there  was  a 
touch  of  iron  in  her  voice.  "You  are  no 
longer  sure  of  that.  Thinking  it  over, 
you  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
may  have  been  barely  six-thirty  when  you 
heard  the  noise  of  a  struggle." 


Column 

"Indeed?"  said  I.  I  tried  to  sound  sar- 
castic, but  I  was  really  too  astonished  by 
her  tone. 

"Yes— indeed!"  she  replied.  "That  is 
what  you  will  tell  Inspector  Bray  when 
next  you  see  him.  'It  may  have  been  six- 
thirty/  you  will  tell  him.  'I  have  thought 
it  over  and  I  am  not  certain.' " 

"Even  for  a  very  charming  lady,"  I 
said,  "I  can  not  misrepresent  the  facts 
in  a  matter  so  important.  It  was  after 
seven — " 

"I  am  not  asking  you  to  do  a  favor  for 
a  lady,"  she  replied.  "I  am  asking  you  to 
rdo  a  favor  for  yourself.  If  you  refuse  the 
consequences  may  be  most  unpleasant." 

"I'm  rather  at  a  loss — "  I  began. 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  she 
turned  and  I  felt  her  looking  at  me 
through  the  veil. 

90 


The  Agony;  Column 


aWho  was  Archibald  Enwright?"  she 
demanded.  My  heart  sank.  I  recog- 
nized the  weapon  in  her  hands.  "The 
police,"  she  went  on,  "do  not  yet  know 
that  the  letter  of  introduction  you  brought 
to  the  captain  was  signed  by  a  man  who 
addressed  Fraser-Freer  as  Dear  Cousin, 
but  who  is  completely  unknown  to  the 
family.  Once  that  information  reaches 
Scotland  Yard,  your  chance  of  escaping 
arrest  is  slim. 

"They  may  not  be  able  to  fasten  this 
crime  upon  you,  but  there  will  be  compli- 
cations most  distasteful.  One's  liberty  is 
well  worth  keeping — and  then,  too,  be- 
fore the  case  ends,  there  will  be  wide  pub- 
licity—" 

"Well?"  said  I. 

"That  is  why  you  are  going  to  suffer  a 
lapse  of  memory  in  the  matter  of  the  hour 

91 


The  Agony;  Column 


at  which  you  heard  that  struggle.  As  you 
think  it  over,  it  is  going  to  occur  to  you 
that  it  may  have  been  six-thirty,  not  seven. 
Otherwise — " 

"Go  on." 

"Otherwise  the  letter  of  introduction 
you  gave  to  the  captain  will  be  sent  anon- 
ymously to  Inspector  Bray." 

"You  have  that  letter!"  I  cried. 

"Not  I,"  she  answered.  "But  it  will  be 
sent  to  Bray.  It  will  be  pointed  out  to 
him  that  you  were  posing  under  false  col- 
ors. You  could  not  escape!" 

I  was  most  uncomfortable.  The  net  of 
suspicion  seemed  closing  in  about  me. 
But  I  was  resentful,  too,  of  the  confidence 
in  this  woman's  voice. 

"None  the  less,"  said  I,  "I  refuse  to 
change  my  testimony.  The  truth  is  the 

truth—" 

* 

92 


The  Aeoar  Column 


The  woman  had  moved  to  the  door. 
She  turned. 

"To-morrow,"  she  replied,  "it  is  not 
unlikely  you  will  see  Inspector  Bray.  As 
I  said,  I  came  here  to  give  you  advice. 
You  had  better  take  it.  What  does  it  mat- 
ter— a  half-hour  this  way  or  that?  And 
the  difference  is  prison  for  you.  Good 
night." 

She  was  gone.  I  followed  into  the  hall. 
Below,  in  the  street,  I  heard  the  rattle  of 
her  taxi. 

I  went  back  into  my  room  and  sat  down. 
I  was  upset,  and  no  mistake.  Outside  my 
windows  the  continuous  symphony  of  the 
city  played  on — the  busses,  the  trams,  the 
never-silent  voices.  I  gazed  out.  What 
a  tremendous  acreage  of  dank  brick 
houses  and  dank  British  souls !  I  felt  hor- 
iribly  alone.  I  may  add  that  I  felt  a  bit 

93 


The  Agony  Column 


frightened,  as  though  that  great  city  were 
slowly  closing  in  on  me. 

Who  was  this  woman  of  mystery? 
What  place  had  she  held  in  the  life — and 
perhaps  in  the  death — of  Captain  Fraser- 
Freer?  Why  should  she  come  boldly  to 
my  rooms  to  make  her  impossible  de- 
mand? 

I  resolved  that,  even  at  the  risk  of  my 
own  comfort,  I  would  stick  to  the  truth. 
And  to  that  resolve  I  would  have  clung 
had  I  not  shortly  received  another  visit — • 
this  one  far  mote  inexplicable,  far  more 
surprising,  than  the  first 

It  was  about  nine  o'clock  when  Walters 
tapped  at  my  door  and  told  me  two  gentle- 
men wished  to  see  me.  A  moment  later 
into  my  study  walked  Lieutenant  Nor- 
man Fraser-Freer  and  a  fine  old  gentle- 
man with  a  face  that  suggested  some 

94 


The  Agony;  Column 


faded  portrait  hanging  on  an  aristocrat's 
wall.  I  had  never  seen  him  before. 

"I  hope  it  is  quite  convenient  for  you  to 
see  us,"  said  young  Fraser-Freer. 

I  assured  him  that  it  was.  The  boy's 
face  was  drawn  and  haggard;  there  was 
terrible  suffering  in  his  eyes,  yet  about 
him  hung,  like  a  halo,  the  glory  of  a  great 
resolution. 

"May  I  present  my  father?"  he  said. 
"General  Fraser-Freer,  retired.  We  have 
come  on  a  matter  of  supreme  impor- 


tance—" 


The  old  man  muttered  something  I 
could  not  catch.  I  could  see  that  he  had 
been  hard  hit  by  the  loss  of  his  elder  son. 
I  asked  them  to  be  seated;  the  general 
complied,  but  the  boy  walked  the  floor  in 
a  manner  most  distressing. 

"I  shall  not  be  long,"  he  remarked. 

95 


The  Agony;  Colunm| 


"Nor  at  a  time  like  this  is  one  in  the  mood 
to  be  diplomatic.  I  will  only  say,  sir,  that 
we  have  come  to  ask  of  you  a  great — a 
very  great  favor  indeed.  You  may  not  see 
fit  to  grant  it.  If  that  is  the  case  we  can 
not  well  reproach  you.  But  if  you  can — " 

"It  is  a  great  favor,  sir!"  broke  in  the 
general.  "And  I  am  in  the  odd  position 
where  I  do  not  know  whether  you  will 
serve  me  best  by  granting  it  or  by  refusing 
to  do  so." 

"Father — please — if  you  don't  mind — " 
The  boy's  voice  was  kindly  but  deter- 
mined. He  turned  to  me. 

"Sir — you  have  testified  to  the  police 
that  it  was  a  bit  past  seven  when  you 
heard  in  the  room  above  the  sounds  of 
the  struggle  which — which —  You  un- 
derstand." 

In  view  of  the  mission  of  the  caller 


The  Agony  Column 


who  had  departed  a  scant  hour  previous- 
ly, the  boy's  question  startled  me. 

"Such  was  my  testimony,"  I  answered* 
"It  was  the  truth." 

"Naturally,"  said  Lieutenant  Fraser- 
Freer.  "But — er — as  a  matter  of  fact,  we 
are  here  to  ask  that  you  alter  your  testi- 
mony. Could  you,  as  a  favor  to  us  who 
have  suffered  so  cruel  a  loss — a  favor  we 
should  never  forget — could  you  not  make 
the  hour  of  that  struggle  half  after  six?" 

I  was  quite  overwhelmed. 

"Your — reasons?"  I  managed  at  last  to 
ask. 

"I  am  not  able  to  give  them  to  you  in 
full,"  the  boy  answered.  "I  can  only  say 
this :  It  happens  that  at  seven  o'clock  last 
Thursday  night  I  was  dining  with  friends 
at  the  Savoy — friends  who  would  not  be 
likely  to  forget  the  occasion." 

97 


The  AgoRY  Column 


The  old  general  leaped  to  his  feet. 

"Norman,"  he  cried,  "I  can  not  let  you 
do  this  thing!  I  simply  will  not — " 

"Hush,  father,"  said  the  boy  wearily. 
"We  have  threshed  it  all  out.  You  have 
promised — " 

The  old  man  sank  back  into  the  chair 
and  buried  his  face  in  his  hands. 

"If  you  are  willing  to  change  your  tes- 
timony," young  Fraser-Freer  went  on  to 
me,  "I  shall  at  once  confess  to  the  police 
that  it  was  I  who — who  murdered  my 
brother.  They  suspect  me.  They  know 
that  late  last  Thursday  afternoon  I  pur- 
chased a  revolver,  for  which,  they  believe, 
at  the  last  moment  I  substituted  the  knife. 
They  know  that  I  was  in  debt  to  him; 
that  we  had  quarreled  about  money  mat- 
ters; that  by  his  death  I,  and  I  alone, 
could  profit." 


\ 


Column 


He  broke  off  suddenly  and  came  to- 
ward me,  holding  out  his  arms  with  a 
pleading  gesture  I  can  never  forget. 

"Do  this  for  me!"  he  cried.  "Let  me 
confess!  Let  me  end  this  whole  horrible 
business  here  and  now." 

Surely  no  man  had  ever  to  answer  such 
an  appeal  before. 

"Why?"  I  found  myself  saying,  and 
over  and  over  I  repeated  it — "Why? 
Why?" 

The  lieutenant  faced  me,  and  I  hope 
never  again  to  see  such  a  look  in  a  man's 
eyes. 

"I  loved  him!"  he  cried.  "That  is 
why.  For  his  honor,  for  the  honor  of  our 
family,  I  am  making  this  request  of  you. 
Believe  me,  it  is  not  easy.  I  can  tell  you 
no  more  than  that.  You  knew  my 
brother?" 

99 


The  Agony;  Column 


"Slightly." 

"Then,  for  his  sake — do  this  thing  I 
ask." 

"But— murder— " 

"You  heard  the  sounds  of  a  struggle. 
I  shall  say  that  we  quarreled — that  I 
struck  in  self-defense."  He  turned  to  his 
father.  "It  will  mean  only  a  few  years 
in  prison — I  can  bear  that!"  he  cried. 
"For  the  honor  of  our  name!" 

The  old  man  groaned,  but  did  not  raise 
his  head.  The  boy  walked  back  and  forth 
over  my  faded  carpet  like  a  lion  caged. 
I  stood  wondering  what  answer  I  should 
make. 

"I  know  what  you  are  thinking,"  said 
the  lieutenant.  "You  can  not  credit  your 
ears.  But  you  have  heard  correctly.  And 
now — as  you  might  put  it — it  is  up  to 
you.  I  have  been  in  your  country."  He 
100 


The  AgoRY  Column 


smiled  pitifully.  "I  think  I  know  you 
Americans.  You  are  not  the  sort  to  re- 
fuse a  man  when  he  is  sore  beset — as  I 
am." 

I  looked  from  him  to  the  general  and 
back  again. 

"I  must  think  this  over,"  I  answered, 
my  mind  going  at  once  to  Colonel 
Hughes.  "Later — say  to-morrow — you 
shall  have  my  decision." 

"To-morrow,"  said  the  boy,  "we  shall 
both  be  called  before  Inspector  Bray.  I 
shall  know  your  answer  then — and  I  hope 
with  all  my  heart  it  will  be  yes." 

There  weie  a  few  mumbled  words  of 
farewell  and  he  and  the  broken  old  man 
went  out.  As  soon  as  the  street  door 
closed  behind  them  I  hurried  to  the  tele- 
phone and  called  a  number  Colonel 
Hughes  had  given  me.  It  was  with  a 
101 


The  Agony;  Column 


feeling  of  relief  that  I  heard  his  voice 
come  back/over  the  wire.  I  told  him  I 
must  see  him  at  once.  He  replied  that 
by  a  singular  chance  he  had  been  on  the 
point  of  starting  for  my  rooms. 

In  the  half-hour  that  elapsed  before  the 
coming  of  the  colonel  I  walked  about  like 
a  man  in  a  trance.  He  was  barely  inside 
my  door  when  I  began  pouring  out  to 
him  the  story  of  those  two  remarkable 
visits.  He  made  little  comment  on  the 
woman's  call  beyond  asking  me  whether 
I  could  describe  her;  and  he  smiled  when 
I  mentioned  lilac  perfume.  At  mention 
of  young  Fraser-Freer's  preposterous  re- 
quest he  whistled. 

"By  gad !"  he  said.  "Interesting — most 
interesting!  I  am  not  surprised,  however. 
That  boy  has  the  stuff  in  him." 

"But  what  shall  I  do?'7  I  demanded. 

IO2 


The  Agony;  Column, 


Colonel  Hughes  smiled. 

"It  makes  little  difference  what  you 
do,"  he  said.  "Norman  Fraser-Freer  did 
not  kill  his  brother,  and  that  will  be 
proved  in  due  time."  He  considered  for 
a  moment.  "Bray  no  doubt  would  be  glad 
to  have  you  alter  your  testimony,  since  he 
is  trying  to  fasten  the  crime  on  the  young 
lieutenant.  On  the  whole,  if  I  were  you,  I 
think  that  when  the  opportunity  comes 
to-morrow  I  should  humor  the  in- 
spector." 

"You  mean — tell  him  I  am  no  longer 
certain  as  to  the  hour  of  that  struggle?" 

"Precisely.  I  give  you  my  word  that 
young  Fraser-Freer  will  not  be  perma- 
nently incriminated  by  such  an  act  on 
your  part.  And  incidentally  you  will  be 
aiding  me." 

103 


Column 


"Very  well,"  said  I.  "But  I  don't  un- 
derstand this  at  all." 

"No — of  course  not.  I  wish  I  could 
explain  to  you ;  but  I  can  not.  I  will  say 
this — the  death  of  Captain  Fraser-Freer 
is  regarded  as  a  most  significant  thing  by 
the  War  Office.  Thus  it  happens  that 
two  distinct  hunts  for  his  assassin  are  un- 
rder  way — one  conducted  by  Bray,  the 
other  by  me.  Bray  does  not  suspect  that 
I  am  working  on  the  case  and  I  want  to 
keep  him  in  the  dark  as  long  as  possible. 
lYou  may  choose  which  of  these  investiga- 
tions you  wish  to  be  identified  with." 

"I  think,"  said  I,  "that  I  prefer  you  to 
Bray." 

"Good  boy!"  he  answered.    "You  have 
not  gone  wrong.    And  you  can  do  me  a 
service  this  evening,  which  is  why  I  was 
104 


Column 


on  the  point  of  coming  here,  even  before 
you  telephoned  me.  I  take  it  that  you 
remember  and  could  identify  the  chap 
who  called  himself  Archibald  Enwright 
— the  man  who  gave  you  that  letter  to 
the  captain?" 

"I  surely  could,"  said  I. 

"Then,  if  you  can  spare  me  an  hour,  get 
your  hat," 

And  so  it  happens,  lady  of  the  Carlton, 
that  I  have  just  been  to  Limehouse.  You 
do  not  know  where  Limehouse  is  and  I 
trust  you  never  will.  It  is  picturesque; 
it  is  revolting;  it  is  colorful  and  wicked. 
The  weird  odors  of  it  still  fill  my  nostrils ; 
the  sinister  portrait  of  it  is  still  before 
my  eyes.  It  is  the  Chinatown  of  London 
— Limehouse.  Down  in  the  dregs  of  the 
town — with  West  India  Dock  Road  for 
its  spinal  column — it  lies,  redolent  of 
105 


The  Agony;  Column 


ways  that  are  dark  and  tricks  that  are 
yain.  Not  only  the  heathen  Chinee  so 
peculiar  shuffles  through  its  dim-lit  al- 
leys, but  the  scum  of  the  earth,  of  many 
colors  and  of  many  climes.  The  Arab 
and  the  Hindu,  the  Malayan  and  the  Jap, 
black  men  from  the  Congo  and  fair  men 
from  Scandinavia — these  you  may  meet 
there — the  outpourings  of  all  the  ships 
that  sail  the  Seven  Seas.  There  many 
drunken  beasts,  with  their  pay  in  their 
pockets,  seek  each  his  favorite  sin;  and 
for  those  who  love  most  the  opium,  there 
is,  at  all  too  regular  intervals,  the  Sign  of 
the  Open  Lamp. 

We  went  there,  Colonel  Hughes  and 
I.  Up  and  down  the  narrow  Causeway, 
yellow  at  intervals  with  the  light  from 
gloomy  shops,  dark  mostly  because  of 
tightly  closed  shutters  through  which 
1 06 


Column 


only  thin  jets  found  their  way,  we  walked 
until  we  came  and  stood  at  last  in  shadow 
outside  the  black  doorway  of  Harry  San 
Li's  so-called  restaurant.  We  waited  ten, 
fifteen  minutes;  then  a  man  came  down 
the  Causeway  and  paused  before  that 
door.  There  was  something  familiar  in 
his  jaunty  walk.  Then  the  faint  glow  of 
the  lamp  that  was  the  indication  of  Harry 
San's  real  business  lit  his  pale  face,  and  I 
knew  that  I  had  seen  him  last  in  the  cool 
evening  at  Interlaken,  where  Limehouse 
could  not  have  lived  a  moment,  with  the 
Jungfrau  frowning  down  upon  it. 

"Enwright?"  whispered  Hughes. 

"Not  a  doubt  of  it!"  said  I. 

"Good!"  he  replied  with  fervor. 

And  now  another  man  shuffled  down 
the  street  and  stood  suddenly  straight  and 
waiting  before  the  colonel. 
107 


The  AgoRY  Column 


"Stay  with  him,"  said  Hughes  softly. 
"Don't  let  him  get  out  of  your  sight." 

"Very  good,  sir,"  said  the  man;  and, 
saluting,  he  passed  on  up  the  stairs  and 
whistled  softly  at  that  black  depressing 
door. 

The  clock  above  the  Millwall  Docks 
was  striking  eleven  as  the  colonel  and  I 
caught  a  bus  that  should  carry  us  back  to 
a  brighter,  happier  London.  Hughes 
spoke  but  seldom  on  that  ride;  and,  re- 
peating his  advice  that  I  humor  Inspector 
Bray  on  the  morrow,  he  left  me  in  the 
Strand. 

So,  my  lady,  here  J  sit  in  my  study, 
waiting  for  that  most  important  day  that 
is  shortly  to  dawn.  A  full  evening,  you 
must  admit.  A  woman  with  the  perfume 
of  lilacs  about  her  has  threatened  that  un- 
less I  lie  I  shall  encounter  consequences 
108 


The  Agony  Column 


most  unpleasant.  A  handsome  young 
lieutenant  has  begged  me  to  tell  that 
same  lie  for  the  honor  of  his  family,  and 
thus  condemn  him  to  certain  arrest  and 
imprisonment.  And  I  have  been  down 
into  hell  to-night  and  seen  Archibald  En- 
wright,  of  Interlaken,  conniving  with  the 
'devil. 

I  presume  I  should  go  to  bed;  but  I 
know  I  can  not  sleep.  To-morrow  is  to 
be,  beyond  all  question,  a  red-letter  day 
in  the  matter  of  the  captain's  murder. 
And  once  again,  against  my  will,  I  am 
'down  to  play  a  leading  part. 

The  symphony  of  this  great,  gray,  sadi 
city  is  a  mere  hum  in  the  distance  now, 
'for  it  is  nearly  midnight.  I  shall  mail 
this  letter  to  you — post  it,  I  should  say, 
since  I  am  in  London — and  then  I  shall 
wait  in  my  dim  rooms  for  the  dawn.  And 
109 


The  Agony  Column  \ 


as  I  wait  I  shall  be  thinking  not  always 
of  the  captain,  or  his  brother,  or  of 
Hughes,  or  Limehouse  and  Enwright, 
but  often — oh,  very  often — of  you. 

In  my  last  letter  I  scoffed  at  the  idea 
of  a  great  war.  But  when  we  came  back 
from  Limehouse  to-night  the  papers  told 
us  that  the  Kaiser  had  signed  the  order 
to  mobilize.  Austria  in;  Serbia  in;  Ger- 
many, Russia  and  France  in.  Hughes 
tells  me  that  England  is  shortly  to  fol- 
low, and  I  suppose  there  is  no  doubt  of 
it.  It  is  a  frightful  thing — this  future 
that  looms  before  us;  and  I  pray  that  for 
you  at  least  it  may  hold  only  happiness. 

For,  my  lady,  when  I  write  good  night, 
I  speak  it  aloud  as  I  write;  and  there  is 
in  my  voice  more  than  I  dare  tell  you  of 
now. 

THE  AGONY  COLUMN  MAN. 
no 


The  Agony;  Column 


Not  unwelcome  to  the  violet  eyes  of  the 
girl  from  Texas  were  the  last  words  of 
this  letter,  read  in  her  room  that  Sunday 
morning.  But  the  lines  predicting  Eng- 
land's early  entrance  into  the  war  recalled 
to  her  mind  a  most  undesirable  contin- 
gency. On  the  previous  night,  when  the 
war  extras  came  out  confirming  the  fore- 
cast of  his  favorite  bootblack,  her  usually 
calm  father  had  shown  signs  of  panic. 
He  was  not  a  man  slow  to  act.  And  she 
knew  that,  putty  though  he  was  in  her 
hands  in  matters  which  he  did  not  regard 
as  important,  he  could  also  be  firm  where 
he  thought  firmness  necessary.  America 
looked  even  better  to  him  than  usual,  and 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  go  there  im- 
mediately. There  was  no  use  in  arguing 
with  him. 

At  this  point  came  a  knock  at  her  door 
in 


The  Agon£  Column 


and  her  father  entered.  One  look  at  his 
face — red,  perspiring  and  decidedly  un- 
happy— served  to  cheer  his  daughter. 

"Been  down  to  the  steamship  offices,'* 
he  panted,  mopping  his  bald  head. 
"They're  open  to-day,  just  like  it  was  a 
week  day — but  they  might  as  well  be 
closed.  There's  nothing  doing.  Every 
boat's  booked  up  to  the  rails ;  we  can't  get 
out  of  here  for  two  weeks — maybe  more." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  his  daughter. 

"No,  you  ain't!  You're  delighted! 
You  think  it's  romantic  to  get  caught  like 
this.  Wish  I  had  the  enthusiasm  of 
youth."  He  fanned  himself  with  a  news- 
paper. "Lucky  I  went  over  to  the  express 
office  yesterday  and  loaded  up  on  gold. 
I  reckon  when  the  blow  falls  it'll  be  tol- 
erable hard  to  cash  checks  in  this  man's 


town." 


112 


Column 


"That  was  a  good  idea." 

"Ready  for  breakfast?"  he  inquired. 

"Quite  ready,"  she  smiled. 

They  went  below,  she  humming  a  song 
from  a  revue,  while  he  glared  at  her.  She 
was  very  glad  they  were  to  be  in  London 
a  little  longer.  She  felt  she  could  not  go, 
with  that  mystery  still  unsolved. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  last  peace  Sunday  London 
was    to    know    in    many   weary 
months  went  by,  a  tense  and  anx- 
ious day.    Early  on  Monday  the  fifth  let- 
ter from  the  young  man  of  the  Agony 
Column  arrived,  and  when  the  girl  from 
Texas  read  it  she  knew  that  under  no  cir- 
cumstances could  she  leave  London  now\ 
It  ran: 

DEAR  LADY  FROM  HOME:  I  call  you 
that  because  the  word  home  has  for  me, 
this  hot  afternoon  in  London,  about  the 
sweetest  sound  word  ever  had.  I  can  see, 
when  I  close  my  eyes,  Broadway  at  mid- 
day; Fifth  Avenue,  gay  and  colorful, 
even  with  all  the  best  people  away; 
114 


The  Agony;  Column 


Washington  Square,  cool  under  the  trees, 
lovely  and  desirable  despite  the  presence 
everywhere  of  alien  neighbors  from  the 
district  to  the  South.  I  long  for  home 
with  an  ardent  longing;  never  was  Lon- 
don so  cruel,  so  hopeless,  so  drab,  in  my 
eyes.  For,  as  I  write  this,  a  constable  sits 
at  my  elbow,  and  he  and  I  are  shortly  to 
start  for  Scotland  Yard.  I  have  been  ar- 
rested as  a  suspect  in  the  case  of  Captain 
Fraser-Freer's  murder! 

I  predicted  last  night  that  this  was  to 
be  a  red-letter  day  in  the  history  of  that 
case,  and  I  also  saw  myself  an  unwilling 
actor  in  the  drama.  But  little  did  I  sus- 
pect the  series  of  astonishing  events  that 
was  to  come  with  the  morning;  little  did 
I  dream  that  the  net  I  have  been  dreading 
would  to-day  engulf  me.  I  can  scarcely 
blame  Inspector  Bray  for  holding  me; 

us 


The  Agony  Column 


what  I  can  not  understand  is  why  Colonel 
Hughes — 

But  you  want,  of  course,  the  whole 
story  from  the  beginning;  and  I  shall  give 
it  to  you.  At  eleven  o'clock  this  morning 
a  constable  called  on  me  at  my  rooms  and 
informed  me  that  I  was  wanted  at  once 
by  the  Chief  Inspector  at  the  Yard. 

We  climbed — the  constable  and  I — a 
narrow  stone  stairway  somewhere  at  the 
back  of  New  Scotland  Yard,  and  so  came 
to  the  inspector's  room.  Bray  was  wait- 
ing for  us,  smiling  and  confident.  I  re- 
member— silly  as  the  detail  is — that  he 
wore  in  his  buttonhole  a  white  rose.  His 
manner  of  greeting  me  was  more  genial 
than  usual.  He  began  by  informing  me 
that  the  police  had  apprehended  the  man 
who,  they  believed,  was  guilty  of  the  cap- 
tain's murder. 

116 


Column 


"There  is  one  detail  to  be  cleared  up," 
he  said.  "You  told  me  the  other  night 
that  it  was  shortly  after  seven  o'clock 
when  you  heard  the  sounds  of  struggle 
in  the  room  above  you.  You  were  some- 
what excited  at  the  time,  and  under  sim- 
ilar circumstances  men  have  been  known 
to  make  mistakes.  Have  you  considered 
the  matter  since?  Is  it  not  possible  that 
you  were  in  error  in  regard  to  the  hour?" 

I  recalled  Hughes'  advice  to  humor  the 
inspector;  and  I  said  that,  having  thought 
it  over,  I  was  not  quite  sure.  It  might 
have  been  earlier  than  seven — say  six- 
thirty. 

"Exactly,"  said  Bray.  He  seemed 
rather  pleased.  "The  natural  stress  of 
the  moment — I  understand.  Wilkinson, 
bring  in  your  prisoner." 

The  constable  addressed  turned  and 
117 


The  Agoay  Column 


left  the  room,  coming  back  a  moment 
later  with  Lieutenant  Norman  Fraser- 
Freer.  The  boy  was  pale;  I  could  see  at 
a  glance  that  he  had  not  slept  for  several 
nights. 

"Lieutenant,"  said  Bray  very  sharply, 
"will  you  tell  me — is  it  true  that  your 
brother,  the  late  captain,  had  loaned  you 
a  large  sum  of  money  a  year  or  so  ago?" 

"Quite  true,"  answered  the  lieutenant 
in  a  low  voice. 

"You  and  he  had  quarreled  about  the 
amount  of  money  you  spent?" 

"Yes." 

"By  his  death  you  became  the  sole  heir 
of  your  father,  the  general.  Your  posi- 
tion with  the  money-lenders  was  quite  al- 
tered. Am  I  right?" 

"I  fancy  so." 

"Last  Thursday  afternoon  you  went  to 
118 


The  Agony;  Column, 


the  Army  and  Navy  Stores  and  purchased 
a  revolver.  You  already  had  your  serv- 
ice weapon,  but  to  shoot  a  man  with  a 
bullet  from  that  would  be  to  make  the 
hunt  of  the  police  for  the  murderer  ab- 
surdly simple." 

The  boy  made  no  answer. 

"Let  us  suppose,"  Bray  went  on,  "that 
last  Thursday  evening  at  half  after  six 
you  called  on  your  brother  in  his  rooms 
at  Adelphi  Terrace.  There  was  an  argu- 
ment about  money.  You  became  enraged. 
You  saw  him  and  him  alone  between  you 
and  the  fortune  you  needed  so  badly. 
Then — I  am  only  supposing — you  no- 
ticed on  his  table  an  odd  knife  he  had 
brought  from  India — safer — more  silent 
—than  a  gun.  You  seized  it — " 

"Why  suppose?"  the  boy  broke  in. 
"I'm  not  trying  to  conceal  anything. 
119 


The  A^oay  Column 


You're  right — I  did  it!  I  killed  my 
brother!  Now  let  us  get  the  whole  busi- 
ness over  as  soon  as  may  be." 

Into  the  face  of  Inspector  Bray  there 
came  at  that  moment  a  look  that  has  been 
puzzling  me  ever  since — a  look  that  has 
recurred  to  my  mind  again  and  again, 
even  in  the  stress  and  storm  of  this  event- 
ful day.  It  was  only  too  evident  that  this 
confession  came  to  him  as  a  shock.  I  pre- 
sume so  easy  a  victory  seemed  hollow  to 
him;  he  was  wishing  the  boy  had  put  up 
a  fight.  Policemen  are  probably  like  that. 

"My  boy,"  he  said,  "I  am  sorry  for  you. 
My  course  is  clear.  If  you  will  go  with 
one  of  my  men — " 

It  was  at  this  point  that  the  door  of 
the  inspector's  room  opened  and  Colonel 
Hughes,  cool  and  smiling,  walked  in.  Bray 
chuckled  at  sight  of  the  military  man. 
120 


The  Agony;  Column 


"Ah,  Colonel,"  he  cried,  "you  make  a 
good  entrance!  This  morning,  when  I 
discovered  that  I  had  the  honor  of  having 
you  associated  with  me  in  the  search  for 
the  captain's  murderer,  you  were  foolish 
enough  to  make  a  little  wager — " 

"I  remember,"  Hughes  answered.  "A 
scarab  pin  against — a  Homburg  hat." 

"Precisely,"  said  Bray.  "You  wagered 
that  you,  and  not  I,  would  discover  the 
guilty  man.  Well,  Colonel,  you  owe  me 
a  scarab.  Lieutenant  Norman  Fraser- 
Freer  has  just  told  me  that  he  killed  his 
brother,  and  I  was  on  the  point  of  taking 
down  his  full  confession." 

"Indeed!"  replied  Hughes  calmly. 
"Interesting — most  interesting!  But  be- 
fore we  consider  the  wager  lost — before 
you  force  the  lieutenant  to  confess  in  full 
^-1  should  like  the  floor." 
121 


The  Aoa   Column 


"Certainly,"  smiled  Bray. 

"When  you  were  kind  enough  to  let  me 
have  two  of  your  men  this  morning,"  said 
Hughes,  "I  told  you  I  contemplated  the 
arrest  of  a  lady.  I  have  brought  that  lady 
to  Scotland  Yard  with  me."  He  stepped 
to  the  door,  opened  it  and  beckoned.  A 
tall,  blonde  handsome  woman  of  about 
thirty-five  entered;  and  instantly  to  my 
nostrils  came  the  pronounced  odor  of  li- 
lacs. "Allow  me,  Inspector,"  went  on  the 
colonel,  "to  introduce  to  you  the  Countess 
Sophie  de  Graf,  late  of  Berlin,  late  of 
Delhi  and  Rangoon,  now  of  17  Leitrim 
Grove,  Battersea  Park  Road." 

The  woman  faced  Bray;  and  there  was 
a  terrified,  hunted  look  in  her  eyes. 

"You  are  the  inspector?"  she  asked. 

"I  am,"  said  Bray. 

"And  a  man — I  can  see  that,"  she  went 
122 


The  Agony;  Column 


on,  her  eyes  flashing  angrily  at  Hughes. 
"I  appeal  to  you  to  protect  me  from  the 
brutal  questioning  of  this — this  fiend." 

"You  are  hardly  complimentary,  Count- 
ess," Hughes  smiled.  "But  I  am  willing 
to  forgive  you  if  you  will  tell  the  inspec- 
tor the  story  that  you  have  recently  re- 
lated to  me." 

The  woman  shut  her  lips  tightly  and 
for  a  long  moment  gazed  into  the  eyes  of 
Inspector  Bray. 

"He" — she  said  at  last,  nodding  in  the 
direction  of  Colonel  Hughes — "he  got  it 
out  of  me — how,  I  don't  know." 

"Got  what  out  of  you?"  Bray's  little 
eyes  were  blinking. 

"At  six-thirty  o'clock   last  Thursday 

evening,"  said  the  woman,  "I  went  to  the 

rooms  of  Captain  Fraser-Freer,  in  Adel- 

phi  Terrace.     An   argument  arose.     I 

123 


The  Agony  Column 


seized  from  his  fable  an  Indian  dagger 
that  was  lying  there — I  stabbed  him  just 
above  the  heart!" 

In  that  room  in  Scotland  Yard  a  tense 
silence  fell.  For  the  first  time  we  were 
all  conscious  of  a  tiny  clock  on  the  in- 
spector's desk,  for  it  ticked  now  with  a 
loudness  sudden  and  startling.  I  gazed 
at  the  faces  about  me.  Bray's  showed  a 
momentary  surprise — then  the  mask  fell 
again.  Lieutenant  Fraser-Freer  was 
plainly  amazed.  On  the  face  of  Colonel 
Hughes  I  saw  what  struck  me  as  an  open 
sneer. 

"Go  on,  Countess,"  he  smiled. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  turned 
toward  him  a  disdainful  back.  Her  eyes 
were  all  for  Bray. 

"It's  very  brief,  the  story,"  she  said  has- 
tily— I  thought  almost  apologetically.  "I 
124 


Column 


had  known  the  captain  in  Rangoon.  My 
husband  was  in  business  there — an  ex- 
porter of  rice — and  Captain  Fraser-Freer 
came  often  to  our  house.  We — he  was  a 
charming  man,  the  captain — " 

aGo  on!"  ordered  Hughes. 

"We  fell  desperately  in  love,"  said  the 
countess.  "When  he  returned  to  Eng- 
land, though  supposedly  on  a  furlough, 
he  told  me  he  would  never  return  to  Ran- 
goon. He  expected  a  transfer  to  Egypt. 
So  it  was  arranged  that  I  should  desert 
my  husband  and  follow  on  the  next  boat. 
I  did  so — believing  in  the  captain — • 
thinking  he  really  cared  for  me — I  gave 
up  everything  for  him.  And  then — " 

Her  voice  broke  and  she  took  out  a 
handkerchief.  Again  that  odor  of  lilacs 
in  the  room. 

"For  a  time  I  saw  the  captain  often  in 
125 


The  Agon£  Column 


London;  and  then  I  began  to  notice  a 
change.  Back  among  his  own  kind,  with 
the  lonely  days  in  India  a  mere  memory 
— he  seemed  no  longer  to — to  care  for 
me.  Then — last  Thursday  morning — he 
called  on  me  to  tell  me  that  he  was 
through;  that  he  would  never  see  me 
again — in  fact,  that  he  was  to  marry  a 
girl  of  his  own  people  who  had  been  wait- 
ing-» 

The  woman  looked  piteously  about  at 
us. 

"I  was  desperate,"  she  pleaded.  "I  had 
given  up  all  that  life  held  for  me — given 
it  up  for  a  man  who  now  looked  at  me 
coldly  and  spoke  of  marrying  another. 
Can  you  wonder  that  I  went  in  the  eve- 
ning to  his  rooms — went  to  plead  with 
him — to  beg,  almost  on  my  knees?  It 
126 


The  Agony;  Column 


was  no  use.  He  was  done  with  me — he 
said  that  over  and  over.  Overwhelmed 
with  blind  rage  and  despair,  I  snatched 
up  that  knife  from  the  table  and  plunged 
it  into  his  heart.  At  once  I  was  filled  with 
remorse.  I — " 

"One  moment,"  broke  in  Hughes. 
"You  may  keep  the  details  of  your  sub- 
sequent actions  until  later.  I  should  like 
to  compliment  you,  Countess.  You  tell  it 
better  each  time." 

He  came  over  and  faced  Bray.  1 
thought  there  was  a  distinct  note  of  hos- 
tility in  his  voice. 

"Checkmate,  Inspector!"  he  said. 

Bray  made  no  reply.  Pie  sat  there 
staring  up  at  the  colonel,  his  face  turned 
to  stone. 

"The  scarab  pin,"  went  on  Hughes,  "is 
127 


Column 


not  yet  forthcoming.  We  are  tied  for 
honors,  my  friend.  You  have  your  con- 
fession, but  I  have  one  to  match  it." 

"All  this  is  beyond  me,"  snapped  Bray. 

"A  bit  beyond  me,  too,"  the  colonel  an- 
swered. "Here  are  two  people  who  wish 
us  to  believe  that  on  the  evening  of  Thurs- 
day last,  at  half  after  six  of  the  clock,  each 
sought  out  Captain  Fraser-Freer  in  his 
rooms  and  murdered  him." 

He  walked  to  the  window  and  then 
wheeled  dramatically. 

"The  strangest  part  of  it  all  is,"  he 
added,  "that  at  six-thirty  o'clock  last 
Thursday  evening,  at  an  obscure  restau- 
rant in  Soho — Frigacci's — these  two  peo- 
ple were  having  tea  together!" 

I  must  admit  that,  as  the  colonel  calmly 
offered  this  information,  I  suddenly  went 
limp  all  over  at  a  realization  of  the  end- 
128 


Column 


less  maze  of  mystery  in  which  we  were 
involved.  The  woman  gave  a  little  cry 
and  Lieutenant  Fraser-Freer  leaped  to 
his  feet. 

"How  the  'devil  do  you  know  that?" 
he  cried. 

"I  know  it,"  said  Colonel  Hughes,  "be- 
cause one  of  my  men  happened  to  be  hav- 
ing tea  at  a  table  near  by.  He  happened 
to  be  having  tea  there  for  the  reason  that 
ever  since  the  arrival  of  this  lady  in  Lon- 
rdon,  at  the  request  of — er — friends  in  In- 
tiia,  I  have  been  keeping  track  of  her 
every  move;  just  as  I  kept  watch  over 
your  late  brother,  the  captain." 

Without  a  word  Lieutenant  Fraser- 
Freer  dropped  into  a  chair  and  buried  his 
face  in  his  hands. 

"I'm  sorry,  my  son,"  said  Hughes. 
"Really,  I  am.  You  made  a  heroic  effort 
129 


The  AgoaY  Column 


to  keep  the  facts  from  coming  out — a 
manVsize  effort  it  was.  But  the  War  Of- 
fice knew  long  before  you  did  that  your 
brother  had  succumbed  to  this  woman's 
lure — that  he  was  serving  her  and  Berlin, 
and  not  his  own  country,  England." 

Fraser-Freer  raised  his  head.  When 
he  spoke  there  was  in  his  voice  an  emo- 
tion vastly  more  sincere  than  that  which 
had  moved  him  when  he  made  his  absurd 
confession. 

"The  game's  up,"  he  said.  "I  have 
idone  all  I  could.  This  will  kill  my  fa- 
ther, I  am  afraid.  Ours  has  been  an  hon- 
orable name,  Colonel ;  you  know  that — a 
long  line  of  military  men  whose  loyalty 
to  their  country  has  never  before  been  in 
question.  I  thought  my  confession  would 
£nd  the  whole  nasty  business,  that  the  in- 
vestigations would  stop,  and  that  I  might 
130 


The  Agony  Column 


be  able  to  keep  forever  unknown  this 
horrible  thing  about  him — about  my 
brother." 

Colonel  Hughes  laid  his  hand  on  the 
boy's  shoulder,  and  the  latter  went  on : 

"They  reached  me — those  frightful  in- 
sinuations about  Stephen — in  a  round- 
about way;  and  when  he  came  home  from 
India  I  resolved  to  watch  him.  I  saw 
him  go  often  to  the  house  of  this  woman. 
I  satisfied  myself  that  she  was  the  same 
one  involved  in  the  stories  coming  from 
Rangoon;  then,  under  another  name,  I 
managed  to  meet  her.  I  hinted  to  her 
that  I  myself  was  none  too  loyal ;  not  com- 
pletely, but  to  a  limited  extent,  I  won  her 
confidence.  Gradually  I  became  con- 
vinced that  my  brother  was  indeed  dis- 
loyal to  his  country,  to  his  name,  to  us 
all.  It  was  at  that  tea  time  you  have  men- 


The  A£ORV  Column 


tioned  when  I  finally  made  up  my  mind. 
I  had  already  bought  a  revolver;  and, 
with  it  in  my  pocket,  I  went  to  the  Savoy 
for  dinner." 

He  rose  and  paced  the  floor. 

"I  left  the  Savoy  early  and  went  to 
Stephen's  rooms.  I  was  resolved  to  have 
it  out  with  him,  to  put  the  matter  to  him 
bluntly;  and  if  he  had  no  explanation  to 
give  me  I  intended  to  kill  him  then  and 
there.  So,  you  see,  I  was  guilty  in  inten- 
tion if  not  in  reality.  I  entered  his  study. 
It  was  filled  with  strangers.  On  his  sofa  I 
saw  my  brother  Stephen  lying — stabbed 
above  the  heart — dead!"  There  was  a 
moment's  silence.  "That  is  all,"  said 
Lieutenant  Fraser-Freer. 

"I  take  it,"  said  Hughes  kindly,  "that 
we  have  finished  with  the  lieutenant.  Eh, 
Inspector?" 

132 


Column 


"Yes,"  said  Bray  shortly.    ".You  may 

go." 

"Thank  you,"  the  boy  answered.  As 
he  went  out  he  said  brokenly  to  Hughes: 
"I  must  find  him — my  father." 

Bray  sat  in  his  chair,  staring  Hani 
ahead,  his  jaw  thrust  out  angrily.  Sud- 
denly he  turned  on  Hughes. 

"You  don't  play  fair,"  he  said.  "I 
wasn't  told  anything  of  the  status  of  the 
captain  at  the  War  Office.  This  is  all 


news  to  me." 


"Very  well,"  smiled  Hughes.  "The 
bet  is  off  if  you  like." 

"No,  by  heaven!"  Bray  cried.  "It's 
still  on,  and  I'll  win  it  yet.  A  fine  morn- 
ing's work  I  suppose  you  think  you've 
done.  But  are  we  any  nearer  to  finding 
the  murderer?  Tell  me  that." 

"Only  a  bit  nearer,  at  any  rate,"  re- 

133 


The  Agony  Column 


plied  Hughes  suavely.  "This  lady,  of 
course,  remains  in  custody." 

"Yes,  yes,"  answered  the  inspector. 
"Take  her  away!"  he  ordered. 

A  constable  came  forward  for  the 
countess  and  Colonel  Hughes  gallantly; 
held  open  the  door. 

"You  will  have  an  opportunity,  So- 
phie," he  said,  "to  think  up  another  story. 
You  are  clever — it  will  not  be  hard." 

She  gave  him  a  black  look  and  went 
out.  Bray  got  up  from  his  desk.  He  and 
Colonel  Hughes  stood  facing  each  other 
across  a  table,  and  to  me  there  was  some- 
thing in  the  manner  of  each  that  suggest- 
ed eternal  conflict. 

"Well?"  sneered  Bray. 

"There  is  one  possibility  we  have  over- 
looked," Hughes  answered.  He  turned 
toward  me  and  I  was  startled  by  the  cold- 

134 


The  Agony;  Column 


ness  in  his  eyes.  "Do  you  know,  Inspec- 
tor," he  went  on,  "that  this  American 
came  to  London  with  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion to  the  captain — a  letter  from  the  cap- 
tain's cousin,  one  Archibald  Enwright? 
And  do  you  know  that  Fraser-Freer  had 
no  cousin  of  that  name?" 

"No!"  said  Bray. 

"It  happens  to  be  the  truth,"  said 
Hughes.  "The  American  has  confessed 
as  much  to  me." 

"Then,"  said  Bray  to  me,  and  his  little 
blinking  eyes  were  on  me  with  a  narrow 
calculating  glance  that  sent  the  shivers  up 
and  down  my  spine,  "you  are  under  arrest. 
I  have  exempted  you  so  far  because  of 
your  friend  at  the  United  States  Consu- 
late. That  exemption  ends  now." 

I  was  thunderstruck.  I  turned  to  the 
colonel,  the  man  who  had  suggested  that 

135 


The  Agony  Column 


I  seek  him  out  if  I  needed  a  friend — the 
man  I  had  looked  to  to  save  me  from  just 
such  a  contingency  as  this.  But  his  eyes 
were  quite  fishy  and  unsympathetic. 

"Quite  correct,  Inspector,"  he  said. 
"Lock  him  up  1"  And  as  I  began  to  pro- 
test he  passed  very  close  to  me  and  spoke 
in  a  low  voice:  "Say  nothing.  Wait!" 

I  pleaded  to  be  allowed  to  go  back  to 
my  rooms,  to  communicate  with  my 
friends,  and  pay  a  visit  to  our  consulate 
and  to  the  Embassy;  and  at  the  colonel's 
suggestion  Bray  agreed  to  this  somewhat 
irregular  course.  So  this  afternoon  I 
have  been  abroad  with  a  constable,  and 
while  I  wrote  this  long  letter  to  you  he 
has  been  fidgeting  in  my  easy  chair.  Now 
he  informs  me  that  his  patience  is  ex- 
hausted and  that  I  must  go  at  once. 

So  there  is  no  time  to  wonder;  no  time 
136 


The  Agoay  Column 


to  speculate  as  to  the  future,  as  to  the 
colonel's  sudden  turn  against  me  or  the 
promise  of  his  whisper  in  my  ear.  I  shall, 
no  doubt,  spend  the  night  behind  those 
hideous,  forbidding  walls  that  your  guide 
has  pointed  out  to  you  as  New  Scotland 
Yard.  And  when  I  shall  write  again; 
when  I  shall  end  this  series  of  letters  so 
filled  with— 

The  constable  will  not  wait.  He  is  as 
impatient  as  a  child.  Surely  he  is  lying 
when  he  says  I  have  kept  him  here  an 
hour. 

Wherever  I  am,  dear  lady,  whatever  be 
the  end  of  this  amazing  tangle,  you  may 
be  sure  the  thought  of  you — 

Confound  the  man! 

YOURS,  IN  DURANCE  VILE. 

This  fifth  letter  from  the  young  man  of 
the  Agony  Column  arrived  at  the  Carlton 

137 


The  A§on,Y  Column 


Hotel,  as  the  reader  may  recall,  on  Mon- 
day morning,  August  the  third.  And  it 
represented  to  the  girl  from  Texas  the 
climax  of  the  excitement  she  had  experi- 
enced in  the  matter  of  the  murder  in 
SAdelphi  Terrace.  The  news  that  her 
pleasant  young  friend — whom  she  did  not 
know — had  been  arrested  as  a  suspect  in 
the  case,  inevitable  as  it  had  seemed  for 
days,  came  none  the  less  as  an  unhappy 
shock.  She  wondered  whether  there  was 
anything  she  could  do  to  help.  She  even 
considered  going  to  Scotland  Yard  and, 
on  the  ground  that  her  father  was  a  Con- 
gressman from  Texas,  demanding  the  im- 
mediate release  of  her  strawberry  man. 
Sensibly,  however,  she  decided  that  Con- 
gressmen from  Texas  meant  little  in  the 
life  of  the  London  police.  Besides,  she 
might  have  difficulty  in  explaining  to  that 

138 


The  Agony;  Column 


same  Congressman  how  she  happened  to 
know  all  about  a  crime  that  was  as  yet 
unmentioned  in  the  newspapers. 

So  she  reread  the  latter  portion  of  the 
fifth  letter,  which  pictured  her  hero 
marched  off  ingloriously  to  Scotland 
Yard  and  with  a  worried  little  sigh,  went 
below  to  join  her  father. 


CHAPTER  VII 

IN  THE  course  of  the  morning  she 
made  several  mysterious  inquiries  of 
her  parent  regarding  nice  points  of 
international  law  as  it  concerned  murder, 
and  it  is  probable  that  he  would  have  been 
struck  by  the  odd  nature  of  these  questions 
had  he  not  been  unduly  excited  about  an- 
other matter. 

"I  tell  you,  we've  got  to  get  home  1"  he 
announced  gloomily.  "The  German 
troops  are  ready  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  for 
an  assault  on  Liege.  Yes,  sir — they're 
going  to  strike  through  Belgium!  Know 
what  that  means?  England  in  the  war! 
Labor  troubles ;  suffragette  troubles ;  civil 
war  in  Ireland — these  things  will  melt 
140 


TheAgoaY  Column 


away  as  quickly  as  that  snow  we  had  last 
>vinter  in  Texas.  They'll  go  in.  It  would 
be  national  suicide  if  they  didn't." 

His  daughter  stared  at  him.  She  was 
unaware  that  it  was  the  bootblack  at  the 
Carlton  he  was  now  quoting.  She  began 
to  think  he  knew  more  about  foreign  af- 
fairs than  she  had  given  him  credit  for. 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  went  on;  "we've  got  to 
travel — fast.  This  won't  be  a  healthy 
neighborhood  for  non-combatants  when 
the  ruction  starts.  I'm  going  if  I  have  to 
buy  a  liner!" 

"Nonsense!"  said  the  girl.  "This  is  the 
chance  of  a  lifetime.  I  won't  be  cheated 
out  of  it  by  a  silly  old  dad.  Why,  here 
we  are,  face  to  face  with  history!" 

"American  history  is  good  enough  for 
me,"  he  spread-eagled.  "What  are  you 
looking  at?" 


The  Agoay  Column 


"Provincial  to  the  death  I"  she  said 
thoughtfully.  "You  old  dear — I  love  you 
so !  Some  of  our  statesmen  over  home  are 
going  to  look  pretty  foolish  now  in  the 
face  of  things  they  can't  understand.  I 
hope  you're  not  going  to  be  one  of  them." 

"Twaddle!"  he  cried.  "I'm  going  to 
the  steamship  offices  to-day  and  argue  as 
I  never  argued  for  a  vote." 

His  daughter  saw  that  he  was  deter- 
mined; and,  wise  from  long  experience, 
she  did  not  try  to  dissuade  him. 

London  that  hot  Monday  was  a  city 
on  the  alert,  a  city  of  hearts  heavy  with 
dread.  The  rumors  in  one  special  edi- 
tion of  the  papers  were  denied  in  the 
next  and  reaffirmed  in  the  next.  Men 
who  could  look  into  the  future  walked 
the  streets  with  faces  far  from  happy. 
Unrest  ruled  the  town.  And  it  found  its 
142 


The  Agony  Column 


echo  in  the  heart  of  the  girl  from  Texas 
as  she  thought  of  her  young  friend  of  the 
Agony  Column  "in  durance  vile"  behind! 
the  frowning  walls  of  Scotland  Yard. 

That  afternoon  her  father  appeared, 
with  the  beaming  mien  of  the  victor,  and! 
announced  that  for  a  stupendous  sum  he 
had  bought  the  tickets  of  a  man  who  was 
to  have  sailed  on  the  steamship  Saronla 
three  days  hence. 

"The  boat  train  leaves  at  ten  Thursday 
morning,"  he  said.  "Take  your  last  look 
at  Europe  and  be  ready." 

Three  days!  His  daughter  listened! 
with  sinking  heart.  Could  she  in  three 
days'  time  learn  the  end  of  that  strange 
mystery,  know  the  final  fate  of  the  man 
who  had  first  addressed  her  so  unconven- 
tionally in  a  public  print?  Why,  at  the 
end  of  three  days  he  might  still  be  in 

H3 


The  Agoav  Column 


Scotland  Yard,  a  prisoner!  She  could 
not  leave  if  that  were  true — she  simply 
could  not.  Almost  she  was  on  the  point 
of  telling  her  father  the  story  of  the  whole 
affair,  confident  that  she  could  soothe  his 
anger  and  enlist  his  aid.  She  decided  to 
wait  until  the  next  morning;  and,  if  no 
letter  came  then — 

But  on  Tuesday  morning  a  letter  did 
come  and  the  beginning  of  it  brought 
pleasant  news.  The  beginning— -yes.  But 
the  end!  This  was  the  letter: 

DEAR  ANXIOUS  LADY:  Is  it  too  much 
for  me  to  assume  that  you  have  been  just 
that,  knowing  as  you  did  that  I  was  locked 
up  for  the  murder  of  a  captain  in  the  In- 
dian Army,  with  the  evidence  all  against 
me  and  hope  a  very  still  small  voice  in- 
deed? 

144 


The  Agony;  Column 


Well,  dear  lady,  be  anxious  no  longer. 
I  have  just  lived  through  the  most  as- 
tounding day  of  all  the  astounding  days 
that  have  been  my  portion  since  last 
Thursday.  And  now,  in  the  dusk,  I  sit 
again  in  my  rooms,  a  free  man,  and  write 
to  you  in  what  peace  and  quiet  I  can  com- 
mand after  the  startling  adventure 
through  which  I  have  recently  passed. 

Suspicion  no  longer  points  to  me ;  con- 
stables no  longer  eye  me;  Scotland  Yard 
is  not  even  slightly  interested  in  me.  For 
the  murderer  of  Captain  Fraser-Freer  has 
been  caught  at  last! 

Sunday  night  I  spent  ingloriously  in  a 
cell  in  Scotland  Yard.  I  could  not  sleep. 
I  had  so  much  to  think  of — you,  for  ex- 
ample, and  at  intervals  how  I  might  es- 
cape from  the  folds  of  the  net  that  had 
closed  so  tightly  about  me.  My  friend 


The  AgoaY  Column 


at  the  consulate,  Watson,  called  on  me  late 
in  the  evening ;  and  he  was  very  kind.  But 
there  was  a  note  lacking  in  his  voice,  and 
after  he  was  gone  the  terrible  certainty 
came  into  my  mind — he  believed  that  I 
was  guilty  after  all. 

The  night  passed,  and  a  goodly  portion 
of  to-day  went  by — as  the  poets  say — with 
lagging  feet.  I  thought  of  London,  yel- 
low in  the  sun.  I  thought  of  the  Carlton 
— I  suppose  there  are  no  more  strawber- 
ries by  this  time.  And  my  waiter — that 
stiff-backed  Prussian — is  home  in 
Deutschland  now,  I  presume,  marching 
with  his  regiment.  I  thought  of  you. 

At  three  o'clock  this  afternoon  they 
came  for  me  and  I  was  led  back  to  the 
room  belonging  to  Inspector  Bray.  When 
I  entered,  however,  the  inspector  was  not 
there — only  Colonel  Hughes,  immaculate 
146 


The  Agony  Column 


and  self-possessed,  as  usual,  gazing  out  the 
window  into  the  cheerless  stone  court.  He 
turned  when  I  entered.  I  suppose  I  must 
have  had  a  most  woebegone  appearance, 
for  a  look  of  regret  crossed  his  face. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  he  cried,  "my  most 
humble  apologies!  I  intended  to  have 
you  released  last  night.  But,  believe  me, 
I  have  been  frightfully  busy." 

I  said  nothing.  What  could  I  say? 
The  fact  that  he  had  been  busy  struck  me 
as  an  extremely  silly  excuse.  But  the  in- 
ference that  my  escape  from  the  toils  of 
the  law  was  imminent  set  my  heart  to 
thumping. 

"I  fear  you  can  never  forgive  me  for 
throwing  you  over  as  I  did  yesterday,"  he 
went  on.  "I  can  only  say  that  it  was  ab- 
solutely necessary — as  you  shall  shortly 
understand." 

H7 


The  Agony;  Column 


I  thawed  a  bit.  After  all,  there  was  an 
unmistakable  sincerity  in  his  voice  and 
manner. 

"We  are  waiting  for  Inspector  Bray," 
continued  the  colonel.  "I  take  it  you  wish 
to  see  this  thing  through?" 

"To  the  end,"  I  answered. 

"Naturally.  The  inspector  was  called 
away  yesterday  immediately  after  our  in- 
terview with  him.  He  had  business  on 
the  Continent,  I  understand.  But  fortu- 
nately I  managed  to  reach  him  at  Dover 
and  he  has  come  back  to  London.  I 
wanted  him,  you  see,  because  I  have 
found  the  murderer  of  Captain  Fraser- 
Freer." 

I  thrilled  to  hear  that,  for  from  my 
point  of  view  it  was  certainly  a  consum- 
mation devoutly  to  be  wished.  The  colo- 
nel did  not  speak  again.  In  a  few  min- 
148 


The  Agoav  Column 


utes  the  door  opened  and  Bray  came  in. 
His  clothes  looked  as  though  he  had  slept 
in  them;  his  little  eyes  were  bloodshot. 
But  in  those  eyes  there  was  a  fire  I  shall 
never  forget.  Hughes  bowed. 

"Good  afternoon,  Inspector,"  he  said. 
"I'm  really  sorry  I  had  to  interrupt  you 
as  I  did ;  but  I  most  awfully  wanted  you 
to  know  that  you  owe  me  a  Homburg 
hat."  He  went  closer  to  the  detective. 
"You  see,  I  have  won  that  wager.  I 
have  found  the  man  who  murdered  Cap- 
tain Fraser-Freer." 

Curiously  enough,  Bray  said  nothing. 
He  sat  down  at  his  desk  and  idly  glanced 
through  the  pile  of  mail  that  lay  upon  it. 
Finally  he  looked  up  and  said  in  a  weary 
tone: 

"You're  very  clever,  I'm  sure,  Colonel 
Hughes." 

149 


The  Agony;  Column 


"Oh — I  wouldn't  say  that,"  replied 
Hughes.  uLuck  was  with  me — from  the 
first.  I  am  really  very  glad  to  have  been 
of  service  in  the  matter,  for  I  am  con- 
vinced that  if  I  had  not  taken  part  in  the 
search  it  would  have  gone  hard  with 
some  innocent  man." 

Bray's  big  pudgy  hands  still  played 
idly  with  the  mail  on  his  desk.  Hughes 
went  on : 

"Perhaps,  as  a  clever  detective,  you  will 
be  interested  in  the  series  of  events  which 
enabled  me  to  win  that  Homburg  hat? 
You  have  heard,  no  doubt,  that  the  man  I 
have  caught  is  Von  der  Herts — ten  years 
ago  the  best  secret-service  man  in  the  em- 
ploy of  the  Berlin  government,  but  for 
the  past  few  years  mysteriously  missing 
from  our  line  of  vision.  We've  been  won- 
'dering  about  him — at  the  War  Office." 
150 


Column 


The  colonel  dropped  into  a  chair,  fac- 
ing Bray. 

"You  know  Von  der  Herts,  of  course?" 
he  remarked  casually. 

"Of  course,"  said  Bray,  still  in  that 
(dead  tired  voice. 

"He  is  the  head  of  that  crowd  in  Eng- 
land," went  on  Hughes.  "Rather  a 
feather  in  my  cap  to  get  him — but  I 
mustn't  boast.  Poor  Fraser-Freer  would 
have  got  him  if  I  hadn't — only  Von  def 
Herts  had  the  luck  to  get  the  captain 
first." 

Bray  raised  his  eyes. 

"You  said  you  were  going  to  tell  me — " 
he  began. 

"And  so  I  am,"  said  Hughes.  "Cap- 
tain Fraser-Freer  got  in  rather  a  mess  in 
India  and  failed  of  promotion.  If  was 
suspected  that  he  was  discontented,  soured 
151 


The  A£ORV  Column 


on  the  Service;  and  the  Countess  Sophie 
de  Graf  was  set  to  beguile  him  with  her 
charms,  to  kill  his  loyalty  and  win  him 
over  to  her  crowd. 

"It  was  thought  she  had  succeeded — 
the  Wilhelmstrasse  thought  so — we  at  the 
War  Office  thought  so,  as  long  as  he 
stayed  in  India. 

"But  when  the  captain  and  the  woman 
came  on  to  London  we  discovered  that  we 
had  done  him  a  great  injustice.  He  let  us 
know,  when  the  first  chance  offered,  that 
he  was  trying  to  redeem  himself,  to  round 
up  a  dangerous  band  of  spies  by  pretend- 
ing to  be  one  of  them.  He  said  that  it  was 
his  mission  in  London  to  meet  Von  der 
Herts,  the  greatest  of  them  all;  and  that, 
once  he  had  located  this  man,  we  would 
hear  from  him  again.  In  the  weeks  that 
followed  I  continued  to  keep  a  watch  on 

152 


Column 


the  countess ;  and  I  kept  track  of  the  cap- 
tain, too,  in  a  general  way,  for  I'm 
ashamed  to  say  I  was  not  quite  sure  of 
him." 

The  colonel  got  up  and  walked  to  the 
window;  then  turned  and  continued: 

"Captain  Fraser-Freer  and  Von  der 
Herts  were  completely  unknown  to  each 
other.  The  mails  were  barred  as  a  means 
of  communication;  but  Fraser-Freer 
knew  that  in  some  way  word  from  the 
master  would  reach  him,  and  he  had  had 
a  tip  to  watch  the  personal  column  of  the 
Daily  Mall.  Now  we  have  the  explana- 
tion of  those  four  odd  messages.  From 
that  column  the  man  from  Rangoon 
learned  that  he  was  to  wear  a  white  aster 
in  his  button-hole,  a  scarab  pin  in  his  tie, 
a  Homburg  hat  on  his  head,  and  meet 
Von  der  Herts  at  Ye  Old  Gambrinus  Res- 
153 


The  Agony;  Column 


taurant  in  Regent  Street,  last  Thursday 
night  at  ten  o'clock.  As  we  know,  he 
made  all  arrangements  to  comply  with 
those  directions.  He  made  other  arrange- 
ments as  well.  Since  it  was  out  of  the 
question  for  him  to  come  to  Scotland 
Yard,  by  skilful  maneuvering  he  man- 
aged to  interview  an  inspector  of  police  at 
the  Hotel  Cecil.  It  was  agreed  that  on 
Thursday  night  Von  der  Herts  would  be 
placed  under  arrest  the  moment  he  made 
himself  known  to  the  captain." 

•Hughes  paused.  Bray  still  idled  with 
his  pile  of  letters,  while  the  colonel  re- 
garded him  gravely. 

"Poor  Fraser-Freer  I"  Hughes  went  on. 
"Unfortunately  for  him,  Von  der  Herts 
knew  almost  as  soon  as  did  the  inspector 
that  a  plan  was  afoot  to  trap  him.  There 
was  but  one  course  open  to  him :  He  lo- 
154 


The  Agoay;  Column 


cated  the  captain's  lodgings,  went  there 
at  seven  that  night,  and  killed  a  loyal  and 
brave  Englishman  where  he  stood." 

A  tense  silence  filled  the  room.  I  sat 
on  the  edge  of  my  chair,  wondering  just 
where  all  this  unwinding  of  the  tangle 
was  leading  us. 

"I  had  little,  indeed,  to  work  on,"  went 
on  Hughes.  "But  I  had  this  advantage: 
The  spy  thought  the  police,  and  the  police 
alone,  were  seeking  the  murderer.  He 
was  at  no  pains  to  throw  me  off  his 
track,  because  he  did  not  suspect  that  I 
was  on  it.  For  weeks  my  men  had  been 
watching  the  countess.  I  had  them  con- 
tinue to  do  so.  I  figured  that  sooner  or 
later  Von  der  Herts  would  get  in  touch 
;with  her.  I  was  right.  And  when  at  last 
I  saw  with  my  own  eyes  the  man  who 
must,  beyond  all  question,  be  Von  der 

155 


The  Agony  Column 


Herts,  I  was  astounded,  my  dear  Inspec- 
tor, I  was  overwhelmed." 

"Yes?"  said  Bray. 

"I  set  to  work  then  in  earnest  to  connect 
him  with  that  night  in  Adelphi  Terrace. 
All  the  finger  marks  in  the  captain's  study 
were  for  some  reason  destroyed,  but  I 
found  others  outside,  in  the  dust  on  that 
seldom-used  gate  which  leads  from  the 
garden.  Without  his  knowing,  I  secured 
from  the  man  I  suspected  the  imprint  of 
his  right  thumb.  A  comparison  was 
startling.  Next  I  went  down  into  Fleet 
Street  and  luckily  managed  to  get  hold  of 
the  typewritten  copy  sent  to  the  Mall 
bearing  those  four  messages.  I  noticed 
that  in  these  the  letter  a  was  out  of  align- 
ment. I  maneuvered  to  get  a  letter  writ- 
ten on  a  typewriter  belonging  to  my  man. 
The  a  was  out  of  alignment.  Then  Archi- 
156 


Column 


bald  Enwright,  a  renegade  and  waster 
well  known  to  us  as  serving  other  coun- 
tries, came  to  England.  My  man  and  he 
met — at  Ye  Old  Gambrinus,  in  Regent 
Street.  And  finally,  on  a  visit  to  the  lodg- 
ings of  this  man  who,  I  was  now  certain, 
was  Von  der  Herts,  under  the  mattress  of 
his  bed  I  found  this  knife." 

And  Colonel  Hughes  threw  down  upon 
the  inspector's  desk  the  knife  from  India 
that  I  had  last  seen  in  the  study  of  Captain 
Fraser-Freer. 

"All  these  points  of  evidence  were  in 
my  hands  yesterday  morning  in  this 
room,"  Hughes  went  on.  "Still,  the  an- 
swer they  gave  me  was  so  unbelievable,  so 
astounding,  I  was  not  satisfied;  I  wanted 
even  stronger  proof.  That  is  why  I  di- 
rected suspicion  to  my  American  friend 
here.  I  was  waiting.  I  knew  that  at  last 
157 


The  Agony  Column 


Von  der  'Herts  realized  the  danger  he 
was  in.  I  felt  that  if  opportunity  were 
offered  he  would  attempt  to  escape  from 
England;  and  then  our  proofs  of  his  guilt 
would  be  unanswerable,  despite  his  clev- 
erness. True  enough,  in  the  afternoon  he 
secured  the  release  of  the  countess,  and  to- 
gether they  started  for  the  Continent.  I 
was  lucky  enough  to  get  him  at  Dover — 
and  glad  to  let  the  lady  go  on." 

And  now,  for  the  first  time,  the  start- 
ling truth  struck  me  full  in  the  face  as 
Hughes  smiled  down  at  his  victim. 

"Inspector  Bray,"  he  said,  "or  Von  der 
Herts,  as  you  choose,  I  arrest  you  on  two 
counts:  First,  as  the  head  of  the  Wil- 
helmstrasse  spy  system  in  England;  sec- 
ond, as  the  murderer  of  Captain  Fraser- 
Freer.  And,  if  you  will  allow  me,  I  wish 
to  compliment  you  on  your  efficiency." 


The  Agony;  Column 


Bray  did  not  reply  for  a  moment.  I  sat 
numb  in  my  chair.  Finally  the  inspector 
looked  up.  He  actually  tried  to  smile. 

"You  win  the  hat,"  he  said,  "but  you 
must  go  to  Homburg  for  it.  I  will  gladly 
pay  all  expenses." 

"Thank  you,"  answered  Hughes.  "I 
hope  to  visit  your  country  before  long; 
but  I  shall  not  be  occupied  with  hats. 
Again  I  congratulate  you.  You  were  a 
bit  careless,  but  your  position  justified 
that.  As  head  of  the  department  at  Scot- 
land Yard  given  over  to  the  hunt  for  spies, 
precaution  doubtless  struck  you  as  unnec- 
essary. How  unlucky  for  poor  Fraser- 
Freer  that  it  was  to  you  he  went  to  ar- 
range 'for  your  own  arrest!  I  got  that 
information  from  a  clerk  at  the  Cecil. 
You  were  quite  right,  from  your  point  of 
view,  to  kill  him.  And,  as  I  say,  you  could 

159 


The  Agony;  Column 


afford  to  be  rather  reckless.  You  had  ar- 
ranged that  when  the  news  of  his  murder 
came  to  Scotland  Yard  you  yourself 
would  be  on  hand  to  conduct  the  search 
for  the  guilty  man.  A  happy  situation, 
was  it  not?" 

"It  seemed  so  at  the  time,"  admitted 
Bray;  and  at  last  I  thought  I  detected  a 
note  of  bitterness  in  his  voice. 

"I'm  very  sorry — really,"  said  Hughes. 
"To-day,  or  to-morrow  at  the  latest,  Eng- 
land will  enter  the  war.  You  know  what 
that  means,  Von  der  Herts.  The  Tower 
of  London — and  a  firing  squad !" 

Deliberately  he  walked  away  from  the 
inspector,  and  stood  facing  the  window. 
iVon  der  Herts  was  fingering  idly  that  In- 
dian knife  which  lay  on  his  desk.  With 
a  quick  hunted  look  about  the  room,  he 
raised  his  hand ;  and  before  I  could  leap 
1 60 


The  Agony  Column 


forward  to  stop  him  he  had  plunged  the 
knife  into  his  heart. 

Colonel  Hughes  turned  round  at  my. 
cry,  but  even  at  what  met  his  eyes  now; 
that  Englishman  was  imperturbable. 

"Too  bad!"  he  said.  "Really  too  bad! 
The  man  had  courage  and,  beyond  all 
doubt,  brains.  But — this  is  most  consid- 
erate of  him.  He  has  saved  me  such  a  lot 
of  trouble." 

The  colonel  effected  my  release  at  once ; 
and  he  and  I  walked  down  Whitehall  to- 
gether in  the  bright  sun  that  seemed  so 
good  to  me  after  the  bleak  walls  of  the 
Yard.  Again  he  apologized  for  turning 
suspicion  my  way  the  previous  day;  but 
I  assured  him  I  held  no  grudge  for  that. 

"One  or  two  things  I  do  not  under- 
stand," I  said.  "That  letter  I  brought 
from  Interlaken — " 

161 


The  Agony;  Column 


"Simple  enough,"  he  replied.  "En- 
wright — who,  by  the  way,  is  now  in  the 
Tower — wanted  to  communicate  with 
Fraser-Freer,  who  he  supposed  was  a 
loyal  member  of  the  band.  Letters  sent 
by  post  seemed  dangerous.  With  your 
kind  assistance  he  informed  the  captain 
of  his  whereabouts  and  the  date  of  his  im- 
minent arrival  in  London.  Fraser-Freer, 
not  wanting  you  entangled  in  his  plans, 
eliminated  you  by  denying  the  existence 
of  this  cousin — the  truth,  of  course." 

"Why,"  I  asked,  "did  the  countess  call 
on  me  to  demand  that  I  alter  my  testi- 
mony?" 

"Bray  sent  her.  He  had  rifled  Fraser- 
Freer's  desk  and  he  held  that  letter  from 
Enwright.  He  was  most  anxious  to  fix 
the  guilt  upon  the  young  lieutenant's 
head.  You  and  your  testimony  as  to  the 
162 


Column 


hour  of  the  crime  stood  in  the  way.  He 
sought  to  intimidate  you  with  threats — " 

"But—" 

"I  know — you  are  wondering  why  the 
countess  confessed  to  me  next  day.  I  had 
the  woman  in  rather  a  funk.  In  the 
meshes  of  my  rapid-fire  questioning  she 
became  hopelessly  involved.  This  was 
because  she  was  suddenly  terrified;  she 
realized  I  must  have  been  watching  her 
for  weeks,  and  that  perhaps  Von  der 
Herts  was  not  so  immune  from  suspicion 
as  he  supposed.  At  the  proper  moment  I 
suggested  that  I  might  have  to  take  her  to 
Inspector  Bray.  This  gave  her  an  idea. 
She  made  her  fake  confession  to  reach  his 
side;  once  there,  she  warned  him  of  his 
danger  and  they  fled  together." 

We  walked  along  a  moment  in  silence. 
All  about  us  the  lurid  special  editions  of 


The  Agony  Column 


the  afternoon  were  flaunting  their  predic- 
tions of  the  horror  to  come.  The  face  of 
the  colonel  was  grave. 

"How  long  had  Von  der  Herts  held  his 
position  at  the  Yard?"  I  asked. 

"For  nearly  five  years,"  Hughes  an- 
swered. 

"It  seems  incredible,"  I  murmured. 

"So  it  does,"  he  answered;  "but  it  is 
only  the  first  of  many  incredible  things 
that  this  war  will  reveal.  Two  months 
from  now  we  shall  all  have  forgotten  it  in 
the  face  of  new  revelations  far  more  un- 
believable." He  sighed.  "If  these  men 
about  us  realized  the  terrible  ordeal  that 
lies  ahead!  Misgoverned;  unprepared — 
I  shudder  at  the  thought  of  the  sacrifices 
we  must  make,  many  of  them  in  vain.  But 
I  suppose  that  somehow,  some  day,  we 
shall  muddle  through." 
164 


The  Agony  Column 


He  bade  me  good-by  in  Trafalgar 
Square,  saying  that  he  must  at  once  seek 
out  the  father  and  brother  of  the  late  cap- 
tain, and  tell  them  the  news — that  their 
kinsman  was  really  loyal  to  his  country. 

"It  will  come  to  them  as  a  ray  of  light 
in  the  dark — my  news,"  he  said.  "And 
now,  thank  you  once  again." 

We  parted  and  I  came  back  here  to  my 
lodgings.  The  mystery  is  finally  solved, 
though  in  such  a  way  it  is  difficult  to  be- 
lieve that  it  was  anything  but  a  nightmare 
at  any  time.  But  solved  none  the  less ;  and 
I  should  be  at  peace,  except  for  one  great 
black  fact  that  haunts  me,  will  not  let  me 
rest.  I  must  tell  you,  dear  lady —  And! 
yet  I  fear  it  means  the  end  of  everything. 
If  only  I  can  make  you  understand! 

I  have  walked  my  floor,  deep  in 
thought,  in  puzzlement,  in  indecision. 

165 


The  Agony;  Column 


Now  I  have  made  up  my  mind.    There 
is  no  other  way — I  must  tell  you  the  truth. 

Despite  the  fact  that  Bray  was  Von  der 
Herts ;  despite  the  fact  that  he  killed  him- 
self at  the  discovery — despite  this  and 
that,  and  everything — Bray  did  not  kill 
Captain  Fraser-Freer! 

On  last  Thursday  evening,  at  a  little 
after  seven  o'clock,  I  myself  climbed  the 
stairs,  entered  the  captain's  rooms,  picked 
up  that  knife  from  his  desk,  and  stabbed 
him  just  above  the  heart! 

What  provocation  I  was  under,  what 
stern  necessity  moved  me — all  this  you 
must  wait  until  to-morrow  to  know.  I 
shall  spend  another  anxious  day  prepar- 
ing my  defense,  hoping  that  through  some 
miracle  of  mercy  you  may  forgive  me — 
understand  that  there  was  nothing  else  I 
could  do. 

166 


The  Agony;  Column 


Do  not  judge,  dear  lady,  until  you  know 
everything — until  all  my  evidence  is  in 
your  lovely  hands. 

YOURS,  IN  ALL  HUMILITY. 

The  first  few  paragraphs  of  this  the 
sixth  and  next  to  the  last  letter  from  the 
Agony  Column  man  had  brought  a  smile 
of  relief  to  the  face  of  the  girl  who  read. 
She  was  decidedly  glad  to  learn  that  her 
friend  no  longer  languished  back  of  those 
gray  walls  on  Victoria  Embankment. 
With  excitement  that  increased  as  she 
went  along,  she  followed  Colonel  Hughes 
as — in  the  letter — he  moved  nearer  and 
nearer  his  denouement,  until  finally  his 
finger  pointed  to  Inspector  Bray  sitting 
guilty  in  his  chair.  This  was  an  emi- 
nently satisfactory  solution,  and  it  served 
the  inspector  right  for  locking  up  her 
friend.  Then,  with  the  suddenness  of  a 


Column 


bomb  from  a  Zeppelin,  came,  at  the  end, 
her  strawberry  man's  confession  of  guilt. 
He  was  the  murderer,  after  all !  He  ad- 
mitted it!  She  could  scarcely  believe  her 
eyes. 

Yet  there  it  was,  in  ink  as  violet  as  those 
eyes,  on  the  note  paper  that  had  become  so 
familiar  to  her  during  the  thrilling  week 
just  past.  She  read  it  a  second  time,  and 
yet  a  third.  Her  amazement  gave  way  to 
anger;  her  cheeks  flamed.  Still — he  had 
asked  her  not  to  judge  until  all  his  evi- 
dence was  in.  This  was  a  reasonable  re- 
quest surely,  and  she  could  not  in  fairness 
refuse  to  grant  it. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SO  BEGAN  an  anxious  day,  not  only 
for  the  girl  from  Texas  but  for  all 
London  as  well.  Her  father  was 
bursting  with  new  diplomatic  secrets  re- 
cently extracted  from  his  bootblack  ad- 
viser. Later,  in  Washington,  he  was  des- 
tined to  be  a  marked  man  because  of  his 
grasp  of  the  situation  abroad.  No  one 
suspected  the  bootblack,  the  power  behind 
the  throne ;  but  the  gentleman  from  Texas 
was  destined  to  think  of  that  able  diplo- 
mat many  times,  and  to  wish  that  he  still 
had  him  at  his  feet  to  advise  him. 

"War   by   midnight,    sure!"    he    pro- 
claimed on  the  morning  of  this  fateful 
Tuesday.     "I   tell   you,   Marian,   we're 
1169 


The  Agony;  Column 


lucky  to  have  our  tickets  on  the  Saronia. 
Five  thousand  dollars  wouldn't  buy  them 
from  me  to-day!  I'll  be  a  happy  man 
when  we  go  aboard  that  liner  day  after 
to-morrow." 

Day  after  to-morrow!  The  girl  won- 
dered. At  any  rate,  she  would  have  that 
last  letter  then — the  letter  that  was  to  con- 
tain whatever  defense  her  young  friend 
could  offer  to  explain  his  dastardly  act. 
She  waited  eagerly  for  that  final  epistle. 

The  day  dragged  on,  bringing  at  its 
close  England's  entrance  into  the  war; 
and  the  Carlton  bootblack  was  a  prophet 
not  without  honor  in  a  certain  Texas 
heart.  And  on  the  following  morning 
there  arrived  a  letter  which  was  torn  open 
by  eager  trembling  fingers.  The  letter 
spoke : 

DEAR  LADY  JUDGE:  This  is  by  far  the 
170 


Column 


hardest  to  write  of  all  the  letters  you  have 
had  from  me.  For  twenty-four  hours  I 
have  been  planning  it.  Last  night  I 
walked  on  the  Embankment  while  the 
hansoms  jogged  by  and  the  lights  of  the 
tramcars  danced  on  Westminster  Bridge 
just  as  the  fireflies  used  to  in  the  garden 
back  of  our  house  in  Kansas.  While  I 
walked  I  planned.  To-day,  shut  up  in  my 
rooms,  I  was  also  planning.  And  yet  now, 
when  I  sit  down  to  write,  I  am  still  con- 
fused; still  at  a  loss  where  to  begin  and 
what  to  say,  once  I  have  begun. 

At  the  close  of  my  last  letter  I  confessed' 
to  you  that  it  was  I  who  murdered  Cap- 
tain Fraser-Freer.  That  is  the  truth. 
Soften  the  blow  as  I  may,  it  all  comes 
Hown  to  that.  The  bitter  truth ! 

Not  a  week  ago — last  Thursday  night 
at  seven — I  climbed  our  dark  stairs  and 
171 


The  Agoav  Column 


plunged  a  knife  into  the  heart  of  that  de- 
fenseless gentleman.  If  only  I  could 
point  out  to  you  that  he  had  offended  me 
in  some  way;  if  I  could  prove  to  you  that 
his  death  was  necessary  to  me,  as  it  really 
was  to  Inspector  Bray — then  there  might 
be  some  hope  of  your  ultimate  pardon. 
But,  alas !  he  had  been  most  kind  to  me — 
kinder  than  I  have  allowed  you  to  guess 
from  my  letters.  There  was  no  actual 
need  to  do  away  with  him.  Where  shall 
I  look  for  a  defense? 

At  the  moment  the  only  defense  I  can 
think  of  is  simply  this — the  captain  knows 
I  killed  him! 

Even  as  I  write  this,  I  hear  his  footsteps 
above  me,  as  I  heard  them  when  I  sat  here 
composing  my  first  letter  to  you.  He  is 
dressing  for  dinner.  We  are  to  dine  to- 
gether at  Romano's. 

172 


•BIT 


The  Agony  Column 


And  there,  my  lady,  you  have  finally 
the  answer  to  the  mystery  that  has — I 
hope — puzzled  you.  I  killed  my  friend 
the  captain  in  my  second  letter  to  you,  and 
all  the  odd  developments  that  followed 
lived  only  in  my  imagination  as  I  sat  here 
beside  the  green-shaded  lamp  in  my; 
study,  plotting  how  I  should  write  seven 
letters  to  you  that  would,  as  the  novel  ad- 
vertisements say,  grip  your  attention  to 
the  very  end.  Oh,  I  am  guilty — there  is 
no  denying  that.  And,  though  I  do  not 
wish  to  ape  old  Adam  and  imply  that  I 
was  tempted  by  a  lovely  woman,  a  strict 
regard  for  the  truth  forces  me  to  add  that 
there  is  also  guilt  upon  your  head.  How 
so?  Go  back  to  that  message  you  inserted 
in  the  Dally  Mall:  "The  grapefruit  lady's 
great  fondness  for  mystery  and  ro- 
mance— " 

173 


The  Agony  Column 


You  did  not  know  it,  of  course ;  but  in 
those  words  you  passed  me  a  challenge  I 
could  not  resist;  for  making  plots  is  the 
business  of  life — more,  the  breath  of  life 
— to  me.  I  have  made  many;  and  per- 
haps you  have  followed  some  of  them,  on 
Broadway.  Perhaps  you  have  seen  a  play 
of  mine  announced  for  early  production 
in  London.  There  was  mention  of  it  in 
the  program  at  the  Palace.  That  was  the 
business  which  kept  me  in  England.  The 
project  has  been  abandoned  now  and  I  am 
free  to  go  back  home. 

Thus  you  see  that  when  you  granted  me 
the  privilege  of  those  seven  letters  you 
played  into  my  hands.  So,  said  I,  she 
longs  for  mystery  and  romance.  Then,  by 
the  Lord  Harry,  she  shall  have  them! 

And  it  was  the  tramp  of  Captain 
Fraser-Freer's  boots  above  my  head  that 

174 


The  Agoii£  Column 


showed  me  the  way.  A  fine,  stalwart,  cor- 
dial fellow — the  captain — who  has  been 
very  kind  to  me  since  I  presented  my  let- 
ter of  introduction  from  his  cousin,  Arch- 
ibald Enwright.  Poor  Archie !  A  meek, 
correct  little  soul,  who  would  be  horrified 
beyond  expression  if  he  knew  that  of  him 
I  had  made  a  spy  and  a  frequenter  of 
Limehouse! 

The  dim  beginnings  of  the  plot  were  in 
my  mind  when  I  wrote  that  first  letter, 
suggesting  that  all  was  not  regular  in  the 
matter  of  Archie's  note  of  introduction. 
Before  I  wrote  my  second,  I  knew  that 
nothing  but  the  death  of  Fraser-Freer 
would  do  me.  I  recalled  that  Indian 
knife  I  had  seen  upon  his  desk,  and  from 
that  moment  he  was  doomed.  At  that 
time  I  had  no  idea  how  I  should  solve  the 
mystery.  But  I  had  read  and  wondered  at 
175 


Column 


those  four  strange  messages  in  the  Mail, 
and  I  resolved  that  they  must  figure  in  the 
scheme  of  things. 

The  fourth  letter  presented  difficulties 
until  I  returned  from  dinner  that  night 
and  saw  a  taxi  waiting  before  our  quiet 
house.  Hence  the  visit  of  the  woman 
with  the  lilac  perfume.  I  am  afraid  the 
Wilhelmstrasse  would  have  little  use  for 
a  lady  spy  who  advertised  Herself  in  so 
foolish  a  manner.  Time  for  writing  the 
fifth  letter  arrived.  I  felt  that  I  should 
now  be  placed  under  arrest.  I  had  a 
faint  little  hope  that  you  would  be  sorry 
about  that.  Oh,  I'm  a  brute,  I  know! 

Early  in  the  game  I  had  told  the  cap- 
tain of  the  cruel  way  in  which  I  had  dis- 
posed of  him.  He  was  much  amused; 
but  he  insisted,  absolutely,  that  he  must  be 
vindicated  before  the  close  of  the  series, 


The  Agony  Column 


and  I  was  with  him  there.  He  had  been 
so  bully  about  it  all!  A  chance  remark 
of  his  gave  me  my  solution.  He  said  he 
Had  it  on  good  authority  that  the  chief  of 
the  Czar's  bureau  for  capturing  spies  in 
Russia  was  himself  a  spy.  And  so — why 
not  a  spy  in  Scotland  Yard? 

I  assure  you,  I  am  most  contrite  as  I  set 
all  this  down  here.  You  must  remember 
ithat  when  I  began  my  story  there  was  no 
idea  of  war.  Now  all  Europe  is  aflame; 
and  in  the  face  of  the  great  conflict,  the 
awful  suffering  to  come,  I  and  my  little 
plot  begin  to  look — well,  I  fancy  you 
know  just  how  we  look. 

Forgive  me.  I  am  afraid  I  can  never 
find  the  words  to  tell  you  how  important 
it  seemed  to  interest  you  in  my  letters — 
to  make  you  feel  that  I  am  an  entertain- 
ing person  worthy  of  your  notice.  That 
1177 


The  AgotiY  Column  A 


morning  when  you  entered  the  Carlton 
breakfast  room  was  really  the  biggest  in 
my  life.  I  felt  as  though  you  had  brought 
with  you  through  that  doorway —  But  I 
have  no  right  to  say  it.  I  have  the  right  to 
say  nothing  save  that  now — it  is  all  left  to 
you.  If  I  have  offended,  then  I  shall 
never  hear  from  you  again. 

The  captain  will  be  here  in  a  moment. 
It  is  near  the  hour  set  and  he  is  never  late. 
He  is  not  to  return  to  India,  but  expects  to 
be  drafted  for  the  Expeditionary  Force 
that  will  be  sent  to  the  Continent.  I  hope 
the  German  Army  will  be  kinder  to  him 
than  I  was! 

My  name  is  Geoffrey  West.  I  live  at 
nineteen  Adelphi  Terrace — in  rooms  that 
look  down  on  the  most  wonderful  garden 
in  London.  That,  at  least,  is  real.  It  is 
yery  quiet  there  to-night,  with  the  city 


The  Agoiv£  Column 


and  its  continuous  hum  of  war  and  terror 
seemingly  a  million  miles  away. 

Shall  we  meet  at  last?  The  answer 
rests  entirely  with  you.  But,  believe  me, 
I  shall  be  anxiously  waiting  to  know;  and 
if  you  decide  to  give  me  a  chance  to  ex- 
plain— to  denounce  myself  to  you  in  per- 
son— then  a  happy  man  will  say  good-by 
to  this  garden  and  these  dim  dusty  rooms 
and  follow  you  to  the  ends  of  the  earth — 
aye,  to  Texas  itself! 

Captain  Fraser-Freer  is  coming  down 
the  stairs.  Is  this  good-by  forever,  my 
lady?  With  all  my  soul,  I  hope  not. 

YOUR  CONTRITE  STRAWBERRY  MAN. 


CHAPTER   IX 

WORDS  are  futile  things  with 
which  to  attempt  a  description 
of  the  feelings  of  the  girl  at  the 
Carlton  as  she  read  this,  the  last  letter  of 
seven  written  to  her  through  the  medium 
of  her  maid,  Sadie  Haight.  Turning  the 
pages  of  the  dictionary  casually,  one 
might  enlist  a  few — for  example,  amaze- 
ment, anger,  unbelief,  wonder.  Perhaps, 
to  go  back  to  the  letter  a,  even  amusement. 
We  may  leave  her  with  the  solution  to  the 
puzzle  in  her  hand,  the  Saronla  a  little 
more  than  a  day  away,  and  a  weirdly 
mixed  company  of  emotions  struggling  in 
her  soul. 

1 80 


The  Agony  Column 


And  leaving  her  thus,  let  us  go  back  to 
Adelphi  Terrace  and  a  young  man  ex- 
ceedingly worried. 

Once  he  knew  that  his  letter  was  'de- 
livered, Mr.  Geoffrey  West  took  his  place 
most  humbly  on  the  anxious  seat.  There 
he  writhed  through  the  long  hours  of 
Wednesday  morning.  Not  to  prolong 
this  painful  picture,  let  us  hasten  to  add 
that  at  three  o'clock  that  same  afternoon 
came  a  telegram  that  was  to  end  suspense. 
He  tore  it  open  and  read : 

STRAWBERRY  MAN:  I  shall  never, 
never  forgive  you.  But  we  are  sailing  to- 
morrow on  the  Saronia.  Were  you  think- 
ing of  going  home  soon? 

MARIAN  A.  LARNED. 

Thus  it  happened  that,  a  few  minutes 
later,  to  the  crowd  of  troubled  Americans 
in  a  certain  steamship  booking  office  there 
181 


The  Agony;  Column 


was  added  a  wild-eyed  young  man  who 
further  upset  all  who  saw  him.  To  weary 
clerks  he  proclaimed  in  fiery  tones  that  he 
must  sail  on  the  Saronia.  There  seemed 
to  be  no  way  of  appeasing  him.  The  offer 
of  a  private  liner  would  not  have  inter- 
ested him. 

He  raved  and  tore  his  hair.  He  ranted. 
All  to  no  avail.  There  was,  in  plain 
American,  "nothing  doing!" 

Damp  but  determined,  he  sought 
among  the  crowd  for  one  who  had  book- 
ings on  the  Saronia.  He  could  find,  at 
first,  no  one  so  lucky; 'but  finally  he  ran 
across  Tommy  Gray.  Gray,  an  old  friend, 
admitted  when  pressed  that  he  had  a  pas- 
sage on  that  most  desirable  boat.  But  the 
offer  of  all  the  king's  horses  and  all  the 
king's  gold  left  him  unmoved.  Much,  he 
said,  as  he  would  have  liked  to  oblige,  he 
182 


Column 


and  his  wife  were  determined.  They 
would  sail. 

It  was  then  that  Geoffrey  West  made  a) 
compact  with  his  friend.  He  secured 
from  him  the  necessary  steamer  labels  and! 
it  was  arranged  that  his  baggage  was  to  go 
aboard  the  Saronia  as  the  property  of 
Gray. 

"But,"  protested  Gray,  "even  suppose 
you  do  put  this  through ;  suppose  you  do 
manage  to  sail  without  a  ticket — where 
will  you  sleep?  In  chains  somewhere  be- 
low, I  fancy." 

"No  matter!"  bubbled  West.  "I'll 
sleep  in  the  dining  saloon,  in  a  lifeboat, 
on  the  lee  scuppers — whatever  they  are. 
I'll  sleep  in  the  air,  without  any  visible 
support !  I'll  sleep  anywhere — nowhere — • 
but  I'll  sail!  And  as  for  irons — they  don't 
make  'em  strong  enough  to  hold  me." 


The  Agony  Column 


At  five  o'clock  on  Thursday  afternoon 
the  Saronia  slipped  smoothly  away  from 
a  Liverpool  dock.  Twenty-five  hundred 
Americans — about  twice  the  number  the 
boat  could  comfortably  carry — stood  on 
Her  decks  and  cheered.  Some  of  those  in 
that  crowd  who  had  millions  of  money 
were  booked  for  the  steerage.  All  of 
them  were  destined  to  experience  during 
that  crossing  hunger,  annoyance,  discom- 
fort. They  were  to  be  stepped  on,  sat  on, 
crowded  and  jostled.  They  suspected  as 
much  when  the  boat  left  the  dock.  Yet 
they  cheered ! 

Gayest  among  them  was  Geoffrey 
West,  triumphant  amid  the  confusion. 
He  was  safely  aboard;  the  boat  was  on  its 
way!  Little  Hid  it  trouble  him  that  he 
went  as  a  stowaway,  since  He  had  no 
ticket;  nothing  but  an  overwhelming  He- 
184 


Column 


termination  to  be  on  the  good  ship  Saro- 
nla. 

That  night  as  the  Saronia  stole  along 
with  all  deck  lights  out  and  every  port- 
hole curtained,  West  saw  on  the  dim  deck 
the  slight  figure  of  a  girl  who  meant  much 
to  him.  She  was  standing  staring  out  over 
the  black  waters ;  and,  with  wildly  beat- 
ing heart,  he  approached  her,  not  know- 
ing what  to  say,  but  feeling  that  a  start 
must  be  made  somehow. 

"Please  pardon  me  for  addressing  you," 
lie  began.  "But  I  want  to  tell  you — " 

She  turned,  startled;  and  then  smiled 
an  odd  little  smile,  which  he  could  not  see 
in  the  dark. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  she  said.  "I 
Haven't  met  you,  that  I  recall — " 

"I  know,"  he  answered.  "That's  go- 
ing to  be  arranged  to-morrow.  Mrs. 

185 


The  Agony  Column 


Tommy  Gray  says  you  crossed  with 
them—" 

"Mere  steamer  acquaintances,"  the  girl 
replied  coldly. 

"Of  course!  But  Mrs.  Gray  is  a  dar- 
ling— she'll  fix  that  all  right.  I  just  want 
to  say,  before  to-morrow  comes — " 

"Wouldn't  it  be  better  to  wait?" 

"I  can't!  I'm  on  this  ship  without  a 
ticket.  I've  got  to  go  down  in  a  minute 
and  tell  the  purser  that.  Maybe  he'll 
throw  me  overboard;  maybe  he'll  lock  me 
up.  I  don't  know  what  they  do  with  peo- 
ple like  me.  Maybe  they'll  make  a  stoker 
of  me.  And  then  I  shall  have  to  stoke, 
with  no  chance  of  seeing  you  again.  So 
that's  why  I  want  to  say  now — I'm  sorry  I 
have  such  a  keen  imagination.  It  carried 
me  away — really  it  did!  I  didn't  mean  to 
deceive  you  with  those  letters ;  but,  once  I 
186 


Column 


got  started —  You  know,  don't  you,  that 
I  love  you  with  all  my  heart?  From  the 
moment  you  came  into  the  Carlton  that 
morning  I — " 

"Really— Mr.— Mr.— " 

"West — Geoffrey  West.  I  adore  you! 
What  can  I  do  to  prove  it?  I'm  going  to 
prove  it — before  this  ship  docks  in  the 
North  River.  Perhaps  I'd  better  talk  to 
your  father,  and  tell  him  about  the  Ag- 
ony Column  and  those  seven  letters— 

"You'd  better  not!  He's  in  a  terribly 
bad  humor.  The  dinner  was  awful,  and 
the  steward  said  we'd  be  looking  back  to 
It  and  calling  it  a  banquet  before  the  voy- 
age ends.  Then,  too,  poor  dad  says  he 
simply  can  not  sleep  in  the  stateroom 
they've  given  him — " 

"All  the  better!  I'll  see  him  at  once. 
If  he  stands  for  me  now  he'll  stand  for  me 


The  Agony;  Column 


tiny  time!  And,  before  I  go  down  and 
beard  a  harsh-looking  purser  in  his  den, 
;won't  you  believe  me  when  I  say  I'm 
ideeply  in  love— 

"In  love  with  mystery  and  romance !  In 
love  with  your  own  remarkable  powers  of 
invention!  Really,  I  can't  take  you  seri- 
ously— " 

"Before  this  voyage  is  ended  you'll 
have  to.  I'll  prove  to  you  that  I  care.  If 
the  purser  lets  me  go  free — " 

"You  have  much  to  prove,"  the  girl 
smiled.  "To-morrow — when  Mrs.  Tom- 
my Gray  introduces  us — I  may  accept  you 
— as  a  builder  of  plots.  I  happen  to  know 
you  are  good.  But — as —  It's  too  silly!  Bet- 
ter go  and  have  it  out  with  that  purser.1' 

Reluctantly  he  went.  In  five  minutes 
he  was  back.  The  girl  was  still  standing 
by  the  rail. 

188 


Column 


"It's  all  right!"  West  said.  "I  thought 
I  was  doing  something  original,  but  there 
were  eleven  other  people  in  the  same  fix. 
One  of  them  is  a  billionaire  from  Wall 
Street.  The  purser  collected  some  money 
from  us  and  told  us  to  sleep  on  the  deck 
* — if  we  could  find  room." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  the  girl.  "I  rather 
fancied  you  in  the  role  of  stoker."  She 
glanced  about  her  at  the  dim  deck.  "Isn't 
this  exciting?  I'm  sure  this  voyage  is  go- 
ing to  be  filled  with  mystery  and  ro- 


mance." 


"I  know  it  will  be  full  of  romance," 
West  answered.  "And  the  mystery  will 
be — can  I  convince  you — " 

"Hush!"  broke  in  the  girl.  "Here 
comes  father!  I  shall  be  very  Happy  to 
meet  you — to-morrow.  Poor  dad!  He's 
looking  for  a  place  to  sleep." 


The  Agony  Column 


Five  days  later  poor  dad,  having  slept 
each  night  on  deck  in  his  clothes  while 
the  ship  plowed  through  a  cold  drizzle, 
and  having  starved  in  a  sadly  depleted 
dining  saloon,  was  a  sight  to  move  the 
heart  of  a  political  opponent.  Imme- 
diately after  a  dinner  that  had  scarcely 
satisfied  a  healthy  Texas  appetite  he 
lounged  gloomily  in  the  deck  chair  which 
was  now  his  stateroom.  Jauntily  Geof- 
frey West  came  and  sat  at  his  side. 

"Mr.  Larned,"  he  said,  "I've  got  some- 
thing for  you." 

And,  with  a  kindly  smile,  he  took  from 
his  pocket  and  handed  over  a  large,  warm 
baked  potato.  The  Texan  eagerly  ac- 
cepted the  gift. 

"Where'd  you  get  it?"  he  demanded, 
breaking  open  his  treasure. 

"That's  a  secret,"  West  answered.  "But 
190 


Column 


I  can  get  as  many  as  I  want.  Mr.  Larned, 
I  can  say  this — you  will  not  go  hungry 
any  longer.  And  there's  something  else 
I  ought  to  speak  of.  I  am  sort  of  aiming 
Ito  marry  your  daughter." 

Deep  in  his  potato  the  Congressman 
spoke : 

"What  does  she  say  about  it?" 

"Oh,  she  says  there  isn't  a  chance. 
But—" 

"Then  look  out,  my  boy!  She's  made 
up  her  mind  to  have  you." 

"I'm  glad  to  hear  you  say  that.  I  really 
ought  to  tell  you  who  I  am.  Also,  I  want 
you  to  know  that,  before  your  daughter 
and  I  met,  I  wrote  her  seven  letters — " 

"One  minute,"  broke  in  the  Texan. 
"Before  you  go  into  all  that,  won't  you 
be  a  good  fellow  and  tell  me  where  you 
got  this  potato?" 

191 


Column 


West  nodded. 

"Sure!"  he  said;  and,  leaning  over,  he 
whispered. 

For  the  first  time  in  days  a  smile  ap- 
peared on  the  face  of  the  older  man. 

"My  boy,"  he  said,  "I  feel  I'm  going 
to  like  you.  Never  mind  the  rest  I 
heard  all  about  you  from  your  friend 
Gray;  and  as  for  those  letters — they  were 
the  only  thing  that  made  the  first  part  of 
this  trip  bearable.  Marian  gave  them  to 
me  to  read  the  night  we  came  on  board." 

Suddenly  from  out  of  the  clouds  a  long- 
lost  moon  appeared,  and  bathed  that  over- 
crowded ocean  liner  in  a  flood  of  silver. 
West  left  the  old  man  to  his  potato  and 
went  to  find  the  daughter. 

She  was  standing  in  the  moonlight  by 
the  rail  of  the  forward  deck,  her  eyes 
staring  dreamily  ahead  toward  the  great 
1192 


The  Agony;  Column 


country  that  had  sent  her  forth  light- 
heartedly  for  to  adventure  and  to  see.  She 
turned  as  West  came  up. 

"I  have  just  been  talking  with  your 
father,''  he  said.  "He  tells  me  he  thinks 
you  mean  to  take  me,  after  all." 

She  laughed. 

"To-morrow  night,"  she  answered, 
"will  be  our  last  on  board.  I  shall  give 
you  my  final  decision  then." 

"But  that  is  twenty- four  hours  away! 
Must  I  wait  so  long  as  that?" 

"A  little  suspense  won't  hurt  you.  I 
can't  forget  those  long  days  when  I  wait- 
ed for  your  letters — " 

"I  know!  But  can't  you  give  me — just 
a  little  hint — here — to-night?" 

"I  am  without  mercy — absolutely  with- 
out mercy!" 

And  then,  as  West's  fingers  closed  over 

193 


The  Agony  Column 


her  hand,  she  added  softly:  "Not  even 
the  suspicion  of  a  hint,  my  dear— except 
to  tell  you  that — my  answer  will  be— 

yes." 


THE  END 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


DEC  2   '84     A 
MAY    6 '85     N 

MAY    61985REC'D 

APR15'91 

JUL25199HEC'D 

APR  15 '93 

J  UN  15  1992  REG  !D 


50m-l,'69(J5643s8)2373— - 3A,1 


PS3503.I54A35 


3  2106  00209  0345 

mi  IT 


,, 


21 


